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Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal
Gourmet Foods, Ingredients & Fine Wines
Eat In Guide’s Outstanding Outlet Award Winner from 2006 to 2010
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The Best Chilli con Carne recipe
We are currently in the grip of more cold wintry weather so it is back to the kitchen for spicy warming food. Lynne’s favourite Chilli recipe is also probably the oldest cookbook recipe she uses – The International Cookbook bought in W H Smith in 1967. This is a Tex Mex chilli not a true Mexican one. We do use tinned beans as they are so cheap and they save so much time and energy. If you don’t do pork you can leave out the bacon but it is the secret ingredient, bringing out lots of flavour.
350g dried or 2 tins red kidney beans -2 large onions, finely chopped – 2 cloves of garlic, crushed - 2 tablespoons olive oil - 450g lean minced beef – 30g chopped streaky bacon or pancetta 1 bottle of tomato passata or 1 tin of whole tomatoes, roughly chopped - 2 fresh red chillies– 1 t powdered Cumin - Freshly ground black pepper – Salt
If you are using dried kidney beans, soak them overnight in cold water. The following day, bring the beans to a boil in plain water, then discard that water. Cover the beans with more water and boil until they are soft.
Heat the oil in a heavy bottomed pan and fry the onions until soft. Stir in the garlic, meat and the bacon and continue frying, stirring occasionally, until the meat has browned. Blend in the drained kidney beans, add the passata or tomatoes with their juice, and season to taste with chilli, pepper and cumin.
Cover the pan with a lid and cook on a low heat for at least an hour and a half, (the meat must be getting soft the onions and tomato melting and all the flavours must be coming together) stirring occasionally and checking that it doesn’t dry out. Add a little water if it begins to. You can bury it in a slow oven as well. Taste and if it is not hot enough, add some more chilli or a little hot chilli sauce. Only add salt at the end as the bacon usually adds enough.
Serve with guacamole, a chopped tomato, spring onion and coriander salsa, rice or crusty bread and a tossed green salad. Serves 6.
Tip: If you want a darker flavour, add one or two squares of good dark chocolate.
Winex We timed our flight back from KZN to get back in time for Winex on Friday night. Lynne’s mission is always to explore new labels and farms, and new wines with different grapes or blends. There were very few farms new to us, some not terribly notable and a couple of people who are buying in all their grapes and marketing them under a farm label – is this what we want to see? Not at all, if the wines are badly made and some were shocking – she tasted a Chenin with a 1950’s style, tropical, hot, oxidised and far too sweet and flat for today’s market – remember Lieberstein? We suspect very hot and over-ripe bought-in grapes from a very hot area which now bear a Stellenbosch label. Hmmm. It was fun to taste the Checkers Oddbins range – we think they should do regular tastings of these in-store of an evening. We went straight off and bought a case of their 330 Chardonnay and their 203 Sauvignon Blanc, very good value for everyday quaffing. Clive Torr is obviously sourcing very good wines indeed for them. Vuurberg from the Helshoogte Pass have produced a very interesting white blend containing Chenin, Viognier, Petit Verdot. John tasted all the Rieslings on offer at the Just Riesling stand and Lynne only one, so not at all to her taste, far too full of petroleum esters that she doesn’t like to find in wine. There are some very good Rieslings from the Cape – Buitenverwachting (now, sadly, discontinued), Paul Cluver and Jordan (which has just won the aromatic section of the Five Nations Challenge). Then back to chat to our winemaker friends and sales managers and taste some really special wines. We met Takuan von Arnim pouring out his range of Pinot Noirs for the guided tasting he was about to do and he very generously allowed us to do a quick tasting of them all. From the 1996 to the current release they were all, without exception drinking well and were all good, if different in style. Without a doubt our favourite was the elegant and gently fruity 2001. Soft Strawberry and cherry fruits supported by good minerality, soft tannins and holding acidity, it was a wine to charm the pants off you. Runs in the family! As we have said before, we applaud the unwooded Pinot they have recently released. It will introduce a much wider market to this lovely grape which is often too expensive for people just entering the wine market to try. Lynne had a chat to Kevin Grant at Ataraxia and voted his Serenity her favourite red of the evening (again). We also tasted all of Jeff Grier’s Domaine Grier wines which he makes in France. A lovely selection – we just wish there was a better market for foreign wines here. The Glenelly wines impressed as did the Cape Points.
At home tasting A very kind reader (and long-standing customer) was kind enough to invite us to his home this week for a tasting of wines (click here for pictures) he had brought back from the USA, with some interesting local and imported wines. We started with two Swartland wines, Adi Badenhorst’s Secateurs White, a blend of Rousanne, Grenache blanc, Viognier, Chenin and Sauvignon, and Lammershoek Roulette blanc which was a delicious way to get our palates in tune for the wines which followed. Our host then opened three most unusual wines: a Neil Rosenthal import, Coenobium 2009 from the hills round Rome – 45% trebbiano 35% malvasia, 20% verdiccio, priced at $22. This was a rich, mellow and deep white wine, quite unlike any we have tasted here. This was followed by
Bressan Venezia Giulia, 100% pinot grigio 2004, a very deep gold/amber perdrix colour. It was quite oxidised, almost like a pinot noir in flavour. Then we were given Sophia fruit wine 2008 (from Louis Dressner). It tasted rather like a good English West country cider, but was not as dry. It was made in an amphora from oranges and developed Naartjie & yeast flavours followed by a herbal finish of basil and oregano. An interesting local wine, with a very humorous label was Testalonga El Bandito 2009, made by Lammershoek winemaker Craig Hawkins, a 100% chenin blanc, intense, rich, and a little oxidised, honeyed, but dry with good acidity and a big mouthfeel. This was followed by Silwervis Egg wine, a tank sample under screwcap with a huge stink of sulphur on nose. It will be bottled next February and it will be interesting to see how it develops. Silwervis is slang for silver plastic wine bag in a box.
We then had De Trafford Chenin blanc 2001, a good demonstration that South African whites can last. Flavour was lemons at first with a chalky minerality, which was followed by caramel, marmalade, and, after a while, toffee apple flavours. La Vierge Pinot noir 2010 was far too young. The colour has a purple tinge and the flavour is fresh strawberry jam. It is a bit too thin and lacks structure. From here, everything became quite magnificent with a Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet 2006, a Premier Cru Chambolle Musigny (Burgundy) and a magnum of 1991 Vina Tondonia Rioja. It was a wonderful opportunity to taste some amazing wines and we are very grateful to Michael, who was our host.
John had a tour with four American clients on Monday, really great people with a lively interest and good knowledge of food and wine and photography, who hail from Hawaii and who used our service on a previous tour. We visited High Constantia, where we tasted David van Niekerk’s range of wines and then moved up to Eagles’ Nest to taste their Shiraz (which has just kicked ass in the Five Nations Challenge in Australia), Viognier and Sauvignon blanc before driving round Chapman’s Peak to the Foodbarn, where four of us chose to eat from the special menu, which is written on the blackboard, an absolute bargain with three courses for R165, four courses for R185 and five courses for R215. All starters and main courses are paired with Nitida wines, which are included in the price, making this menu exceptionally good value. One wishes that photographs could convey flavour, but the beautiful presentation is a good sign of the wonderful flavours. John and Scott started with the fish tartare, in a delicious balsamic based sauce and John followed this with the kingklip and calamari dish, which was in a delicious saffron flavoured broth. Scott had the kidneys and was full of praise for the delicious flavour. Martin and Diane started with the salad and followed with the quail, while Debbie chose to have just one dish, a beautifully prepared rare sirloin. The pictures tell the story. We all finished with the Pear and apple galette. Each visit to the Foodbarn is a delight and we salue Franck Dangereux, Pete de Bruin and their team for the consistently excellent standard they maintain.
After lunch we went next door for a tasting of Cape Point Wines and a bracing uphill stroll through the high altitude vineyards with winemaker Duncan Savage - just what we needed.
Our products. The Spanish paella rice (500g boxes) is in stock and is moving out and we also have the top quality Bomba rice which is in 1Kg cloth bags, ideal for use in haute cuisine. This select variety comes only from the Ebro Delta. Tender and gentle on the palate once cooked, the great absorption capacity of its short, rounded grains allows it to fully soak up the flavour of the other ingredients. It stands out for its capacity to resist overcooking. We have also replenished our stock of the brilliant Nielsen Massey extracts and French and Spanish vinegars.
We have a lot of fun putting MENU together each week and, of course, doing the things we write about, but making it possible for you to enjoy rare and wonderful gourmet foods is what drives our business. We stock a good range of ingredients and delicious ready-made gourmet foods. So, please have a look at our Product List and see what you need. You can contact us by email or phone, or through our website. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. If you are following Masterchef Australia we have Carnaroli risotto rice and truffles, amongst lots of other strange and difficult things to find that they use.
Our market activities We will be at the Old Biscuit Mill’s brilliant, exciting and atmospheric Neighbourgoods Market, as always, this Saturday between 09h00 and 14h00. Next Wednesday, we will be back at the Dean St Arcade in Newlands from 09h30 to 14h30. You will find us at The Place at Cavendish (Woolworths underground entrance to Cavendish Square), nest Friday, 16th September, from 10h00 to 17h00, and we will have our great selection of delicious treats and ingredients there for you.
Good food and wine continues to grow as a focal point for many people in the Western Cape and, to an extent, in other parts of the country. As a result, our list of Interesting Food and Wine Events has grown so much that it was making MENU too long for some of our readers. So we’ve taken it online. Click here to access it. You will need to be connected to the internet.
Our list of Winter restaurant special offers continues to grow. Click here to access it. These 2011 Winter Specials have been sent to us by the restaurants or their PR agencies. We have not personally tried all of them and their listing here should not always be taken as a recommendation from ourselves. When we have tried it, we’ve put in our observations. We have cut out the flowery adjectives etc. we’ve been sent, to give you the essentials. Click on the name to access the relevant website. All communication should be with the individual restaurants.
15th September 2011
Remember - if you can’t find something, we’ll do our best to get it for you, and, if you’re in Cape Town or elsewhere in the country, we can send it to you! Check our product list for details and prices.
PS If a word or name is in bold type and underlined, click on it for more information
Phones: +27 21 439 3169 / 083 229 1172 / 083 656 4169
Postal address: 60 Arthurs Rd, Sea Point 8005
Our Adamastor & Bacchus© tailor-made Wine, Food and Photo tours take small groups (up to 6) to specialist wine producers who make the best of South Africa’s wines. Have fun while you learn more about wine and how it is made! Tours can be conducted in English, German, Norwegian or Dutch flavoured Afrikaans.
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 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. Our Avast! ® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.
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