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Thursday, June 06, 2013

Franschhoek Artisan Food Route: Wine and olives at La Bourgogne

The Shiraz rosé from La Bourgogne

The stream in spate after all the heavy rains over the weekend

La Bourgogne’s tasting room entrance

The owner, Loesje Mayer, and her lovely helper in the tasting room

The view from the tasting room looks French, with their very active and cute sheepdog

We begin our tasting with the olive oils

And then their home grown and made spiced pear preserve and olives

The tasting room has a lovely rustic and warm feel and there are stacks of wine bottles everywhere in niches

An old plum orchard which is about to be replaced and, in the distance, newer trees

Lovely lawns for picnics alongside the river

Franschhoek Artisan Food Route: African Chocolate Dreams

African Chocolate dreams shop is just off the Main Road in Franschhoek

A selection of chocolate boxes in the shop

You can build your own selection and select individual chocolates in your favourite flavours.

Joshua Juries, the proud Chocolatier and owner of the shop

The chocolate conching machine, which keeps the chocolate at the correct temperature and makes it smooth and silky. The hairdryer is for drying the moulds

The ingredients needed to make chocolate. 65% dark Belgian chocolate, milk chocolate and white chocolate. The latter is mainly cocoa butter and vanilla, but contains no chocolate. In front of that, cocoa powder, cocoa nibs, cocoa beans and a block of cocoa butter

Joshua tells us how to make chocolate

The milk chocolate conching machine

Chocolate must be kept a very specific temperature or it will seize or split

Raw cocoa beans

Raw Belgian chocolates that go into the making

Some delightful chocolates for us to sample

They use very specialised and expensive Perspex chocolate moulds that make perfect chocolate shells. This one is many years old and still makes perfect chocolates, but only if it is treated with the utmost respect

Joshua shows us how to pour a shell ...

...which strangely sets on its side and, no, the liquid chocolate does not flow out of the moulds.

Sophisticated fluid mechanics at work. This means the chocolate does not pool in the bottom or on the side of the mould.

Perfect shells on the right, filled with walnut gianduja on the left

When the chocolate cools and hardens, it automatically releases itself from the mould with a sharp tap on the counter. Here you can see the air has reached the base of the shells

And a perfectly formed shiny chocolate shell, just awaiting its filling and tne topping off with more chocolate

Filled with caramel

The mould gets ‘topped’ with more liquid chocolate and the mould is scraped clean with a large palette knife

We get to try them

Joshua making more chocolates. He is very fast and neat

And some caramel cups are filled and decorated for us to try

The fine art of the Chocolatier

Franschhoek Artisan Food Route: Salmon and trout variations at The Salmon Bar

Early snow on the Franschhoek mountains

The Salmon Bar is also on the Main Road in Franschhoek and their very good salmon and trout products are in all our supermarkets – and we think are of higher quality than a lot of the imported products.

The entrance to the restaurant/shop

They also sell local produce from other suppliers and some good bubbly

In fine weather you can sit outside

The inner restaurant

Baby fish. From the left: Brown trout fingerlings, Rainbow Trout and Salmon Trout from their fish farm in the valley. They do also have a project on the go to start a Salmon sea farm in Saldanha Bay.

These Salmon Trout will grow to 3 / 3.5 kilo fish within a year. These fish have a conversion rate of 65% protein which is a very efficient yield. Chicken, the next highest, has a conversion rate of @5%

Aquaculturalist Gregory Stubbs who is also CEO of Three Stream and the Salmon Bar

Three Streams Marketing manager Jessica van Rensburg

Local Smoked Salmon on the left, Smoked Trout on the right. These are salt and sugar cured and cold smoked.

Two of us shared each portion and we drank a glass of Morena Brut Rose MCC with all the fish.

Gregory explains the whole smoking processes, cold and hot

The next plate of products for sale in the shop, has, from top left:

1. Plain poached salmon trout – buttery, soft and not too smokey or salty

2. Hot smoked pepper and mustard glazed

3. Poached with soya lime and ginger and rather a lot of chilli flakes which we found too hot

4. Honey glazed

Then a plate of other fish prepared in the restaurant. From the top left

1. Seared sesame tuna

2. Yakitori honey glazed salmon which we liked the best

3. A good salmon burger with lots of fish and not too much filler

4. Lightly seared salmon trout. The sauces on the plate were all delicious.

These dishes were all amazingly enjoyable. We are great fans and we do buy a lot of these products mainly from Woolworths. They were also very satisfying which gave some of us problems when it came to eating lunch later.

A lovely plate of all the products you can order when you next visit.