A lotus flower and seed pods, De Morgenzon wine
estate, Stellenboschkloof
A fairly quiet
but interesting week. A lot of our time has been spent with friends, but we
have two great restaurant experiences for you and a visit to a beautiful farm
with excellent wines. Please read on...
A tasting and walk in the gardens at De Morgenzon-
A birthday lunch at Jordan
-
Zin and Gin invitation from Blaauwklippen
-
Do you love SA Chenin and Pinotage?
-
Recipe of the week, Green Gazpacho
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Wine of the week. De Morgenzon Grenache
A tasting and a walk
in the gardens at De Morgenzon On the way to lunch at Jordan our friends
asked to revisit De Morgenzon. They loved the tasting they did there last year
and are in awe at the gardens and the featured vineyard where Baroque music
soothes the vines
A
birthday lunch at Jordan This has become an annual event, as our
friends from Holland just love having lunch at this restaurant on Peter's
birthday, which occurs while they are here for two months. We are huge fans of
George Jardine's food, so we too always enjoy the day
Zin and Gin
invitation from Blaauwklippen Blaauwklippen in Stellenbosch is famous
for producing Zinfandel. Once a year, they allow the media to taste one of
their iterations of this interesting grape. This year, the 10th Blaauwklippen
tasting, it was a vertical of the sweet Noble Late Harvest from 2007 to 2014.
Blaauwklippen have also been making Brandy, Eau de Vie & Grappa for several
years; now they have ventured into Gin, which is currently undergoing a huge
renaissance in South Africa and abroad. The tasting was held at the Cape Grace
Hotel this year. We began with the tasting of 8 wines, and ended a lovely meal
with a taste of the gin
Do you love SA Chenin and Pinotage? Mike Duggan of Wine Concepts will host another
great wine show this Friday, 24th March, where he will showcase some great
South African Chenin Blancs and top Pinotages. It will be at the Vineyard Hotel
from 5 till 8 pm. We will be there, so we hope to see many of you. Tickets (R200)
can be purchased via www.webtickets.co.za,
at any of the Wine Concepts branches or at the door on the evening subject to
availability
Lynne has done quite a lot of cooking for our
visitors over the last few weeks and has tried out some new recipes and some
old favourites.
Last week, we were served Ottolenghi's Green
Gazpacho in McGregor. This week, Lynne found the recipe, made some adjustments
and this is what we had as a starter for dinner last night. Lynne halved this recipe,
so it does make a lot. She used a liquidiser. You might need to make this in
batches unless you have a very large liquidiser. It does sound like a lot of
ingredients, but once you liquidise it, it is made. So easy after assembly. It
is based on a Turkish Tarrator. You
can use other nuts, like walnuts (in the original recipe), or ground almonds if
you don't have blanched fresh. Lynne took the garlic down to 2 cloves (from 4)
as it does show quite prominently. Do add more if you like. It is perfect for
the hot muggy weather we are having at the moment
2 celery sticks (including the leaves)
- 2 small green peppers, deseeded - 1 peeled cucumber (350g in total) - 3
slices stale white bread (120g in total), crusts removed - 1 fresh green chilli
(or less if you don’t want it too hot) - 2 garlic cloves - 1 tsp sugar - 150g blanched
almonds - 200g baby spinach - 1 whole peeled ripe avocado - 25g basil leaves -
10g parsley - 4 Tbsp sherry vinegar - 1 cup/225ml olive oil - 40g Greek yoghurt
- 450ml iced water - 250g ice cubes - 2 tsp salt (or more according to your
taste) - white pepper
How
to Make It
Roughly chop up the celery, peppers, cucumbers,
bread, chilli and garlic. Place in a blender and add the sugar, almonds,
avocado, spinach, basil, parsley, vinegar, oil, yoghurt, most of the water,
half the ice cubes, the salt and some white pepper.
Blitz the soup until smooth. Add more water, if
needed, to get your preferred consistency. Taste the soup and adjust the
seasoning. Refrigerate
Lastly, just before serving, add the remaining ice
and pulse once or twice, just to crush it a little. Serve with crusty garlic
bread or crisp croutons.
With thanks to Yottam Ottolenghi
Lynne loved this wine enough to buy it when she
tasted it at the farm tasting room last week. We had it at supper last night
with a warm aubergine and butternut curry. A perfect match. It is full of wild
dark liquorice and rhubarb flavours, some spice, with good wood and tannin for
structure. Good aging potential too. It sells for R127 per bottle from the
farm. Platter has not reviewed it yet
21st March 2017
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
If you like the photographs you see in our publications, please look at our Adamastor Photo website for our rate card and samples from our portfolio
Recommendations of products and outside events are not solicited or charged for, and are made at the authors’ pleasure. All photographs, recipes and text used in these newsletters and our blogs are © John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus. Our restaurant reviews are usually unsolicited. We prefer to pay for our meals and not be paid in any way by anyone. Whether we are invited or go independently, we don’t feel bad if we say we didn’t like it. Honesty is indeed our best policy. While every effort is made to avoid mistakes, we are human and they do creep in occasionally, for which we apologise. This electronic journal has been sent to you because you have personally subscribed to it or because someone you know has asked us to send it to you or forwarded it to you themselves. Addresses given to us will not be divulged to any person or organisation. We collect them only for our own promotional purposes. If you wish to be added to our mailing list, please click here to send us a message and if you wish to be removed from our mailing list, please click here to send us a message.
© John & Lynne Ford, Adamastor & Bacchus 2017
