Queen Mary 2
passes the V&A Waterfront en route to the Duncan Dock in Cape Town harbour
In this
week’s MENU:
South
African Grand Wines Collection presented to Premier Helen Zille
Tracy
van Maaren Trade wine tasting
QM2
Taste of Cape Town competition
Cashew
nut chicken recipe
On
Line Shop
This
week’s Product menu
Our
market activities - Neighbourgoods, Long Beach
Wine
and Food Events
Wine
courses & cooking classes
Main Ingredient's On Line Shop is performing very well. We
are continuing to update it with new products and with photographs of products.
Please do not
pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you. When you
make an eft payment, make sure that it says who you are. Use the form on the
website to email us your order and we will send you the final invoice once
we’ve made sure stock is available. Click here to see the shop.
This week’s Product menu Unless you have lots of time to make your own, you probably use stock
cubes. We have Italian Chicken, Beef and
Vegetable cubes. Portuguese fish stock in cubes. Australian vegetarian cubes
without MSG in beef, chicken and vegetable flavours and a jar of vegetarian
stock powder made with olive oil.
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. You can contact us by email
or phone, or through our website.
We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa.
Our market activities Come and visit us at the Old
Biscuit Mill’s wonderfully exciting, atmospheric Neighbourgoods
Market, as always, this
Saturday and every Saturday between
09h00 and 14h00. Tip: Some visitors tell us how they struggle to
find parking. It’s quite easy if you know how. Click here for a map which shows
where we park. We will be back at the market in Long Beach Mall, Sun Valley,
Fish Hoek tomorrow,
Friday April 11th and next Friday, April 18th.
Presentation
of the ‘South
African Grand Wines Collection’ to Premier Helen Zille. Leeuwenhof is one of the oldest
houses in Cape Town and is set in a beautiful estate at the foot of Table
Mountain. It is the official residence of the Premier of the Western Cape. The South
African Wine Index invited us to a reception there, along with members of the
wine industry and wine media, to witness Premier Helen Zille accepting the ‘South
African Grand Wines Collection’. This collection currently represents 125
natural wines which show up the variety which comes from the SA landscape, their
complexity and structure. Wines which achieve top scores in competitions
here and abroad are indexed, evaluated to select the best and then listed as
iconic South African wines. Premier Zille indicated that she would love to have
some guidance from the industry as to the wines to serve at official banquets
and other state functions. She was presented with two iconic brandies, 20 year
olds from Van Rijn and the KWV, and two wines by Hempies du Toit: a magnum of
Alto Rouge, which delighted her as she said this was the wine served at her
wedding, and a very special bottle of Annandale. Hempies, who also achieved
fame as a rugby Springbok, succeeded his father as winemaker at Alto
before he bought his own farm, Annandale. She also received two
bottles of Vin
de Constance, the iconic dessert wine from Klein
Constantia which was resurrected by the late Ross Gower to match the style of
the famous Constantia wines of the 18th and 19th centuries.
We then moved through to
the dining room, where we were served two courses of three canapés each, made
by talented Chef Marc Wassung and some very good wines including Oak Valley,
Bouchard Finlayson, Creation, Eagle’s Nest, Saronsberg and Cape Point,
Premier Zille spoke about
the new Liquor Bill which has just come into effect in the province, imposing
more restrictions on the sale of alcoholic beverages, saying that alcohol abuse
poses an enormous problem. It is the cause of large numbers of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome
children, crime, extreme violence and murder. She told us of how, for a short
period in Nyanga, they had managed to close all the liquor outlets and for that
period all the crime and violence decreased enormously. She asked for the
industry’s help in combating these problems, while recognising that the
industry does bring enormous wealth and tourism to the Province. Click here to see the photographs.
Tracy van Maaren Trade wine tasting This was held yesterday afternoon at Auslese,
Harald Bresselschmidt’s function venue in Hope Street. This is one of the trade
tastings we really look forward to each year, because Tracy represents a small
but very good list of wine farms and Harald is a master at matching the food to
those wines. We started with a lovely, crisp NV Pol Roger Champagne (said to be
Winston Churchill’s favourite), matched with a phyllo crisp topped with fennel
puree and 2 magnificent tiger prawns. This had a flavour of lemon curd which
went very well with the bubbles. There was a very ripe and fruity 2011 Chablis
from William Fevre and a 2008 Rioja Reserva from Bodega Muga, which was matched
with a bittersweet chocolate filled with blueberry and praline – magical. Next
were John Loubser’s three Silverthorn Cap Classique bubblies. The Green Man is
stunning and the canapé of Vitello topped with a fried white anchovy on
Potato-artichoke puree was a very, very good match to it. The recently released
Jewel Box was a very good match for the Paupiette of free range chicken and
Prawn with leek mousseline. Matching their Genie Rosé with rose Turkish delight
was also a lovely idea.
Vriesenhof have a deep and many layered 2012
Chardonnay and a really impressive 2009 Pinot Noir. One of the memorable
canapés on their table was a wagyu beef topside and aubergine involtini with
spinach, pomegranate and pumpkin seed salad. So unusual but in a way, so
familiar.
The Pan fried duck liver, still just pink, with orange
zest aroma and a grapefruit gelée completely echoed the taste of their 2009
Chardonnay. So well matched by the chef. We reached Lynne’s wines of the
evening at Raats. On tasting the Original Chenin Blanc 2012, John heard those
favourite words “Birthday Wine”. One word was written on the tasting sheet
‘Perfection’. She found it crisp and tight, full of minerality with long lime
and lemon flavours and then the richness develops on the palate. We now have a
case on order. Also of note is their interesting Blanc white blend.
On Cathy Marshall’s table we had our first tasting of
Black pudding. The jury is still out on that, but we absolutely loved both her
wines: the Amatra 2012 Chenin is rich, full and icy hot on the palate. This was
paired with beautiful salmon trout that had been cured with beetroot and served
with a tarragon mustard crème fraiche. Her 2011 Nine Barrels Reserve Pinot Noir
is elegant and savoury and full of red berry fruit. Click here to see the photographs.
Queen Mary 2 We were a little late for the tasting
because, as we crested the brow of High Level Road going into town, we heard on
Cape Talk radio that the liner Queen Mary 2 was just passing Camps
Bay. So we stopped and waited with camera at the ready. She really was a
magnificent sight sailing past Robben Island, Blaauwberg and the Waterfront.
She seemed to float above the new Stadium, then past some welcoming boats
before meeting her tugs and entering Duncan Dock. The largest luxury Ocean
Liner in the world, and Cunard’s Flagship, she is on her way from Australia to
Britain. How we would love to be sailing on her. She will be back in Cape Town
in 2014, so start making your plans now. Note for photographers: the picture
was taken with a 300mm lens on John’s Nikon DSLR (which is equivalent to a
450mm lens on a 35mm camera), so the perspective is compressed. This is why
Table Bay looks so narrow and Tygerberg hill and the oil refinery look so near.
Taste of Cape Town Thank you to all the MENU readers who sent in entries
to our Taste of Cape Town competition. We have never had so many entries to a
competition and were able to obtain an extra ten pairs of tickets from the
organisers. After the first ten names had been drawn, we drew another set of
ten names from the submissions of correct answers received before the first
deadline. We did receive a few late entries, but could not consider them.
Deadlines are deadlines. All the winners will have been notified by now and
should have retrieved their tickets from the website. We will be at the opening
tomorrow and look forward to seeing many of you there.
This week’s recipe Lynne has been cooking a lot of Asian recipes
in the last couple of weeks. We have had a Chicken Tikka Masala and another
Vietnamese beef. On Saturday, inspired by Masterchef Australia, she went out
and bought a (not-so) fresh coconut, fresh turmeric (both at the Biscuit Mill)
and uncooked prawns and made Rick Stein’s Malaysian Laksa. This still needs
work, as the coconut was a washout and we think tinned coconut cream would
probably work better here. The turmeric was also very unripe, so it didn’t give
that wonderful golden orange colour or flavour Mr Stein achieved. And the
prawns were awful and mushy. Hmmmmm. And it was a LOT of work.
One recommendation: we find it is better to eat spicy
Asian recipes when they are warm rather than hot. When they are piping hot, you
seem to lose a lot of flavour. Our recipe this week is from China. Probably
more Western in influence, it is something you may have eaten in a Chinese
restaurant or ordered as a take-away. Chinese food is really simple if you have
the right ingredients and are prepared to do some prep beforehand. These
ingredients are all easy to find. We find that the corn flour seems to help
tenderise the chicken and it will help to thicken the sauce at the end.
Cashew Nut Chicken
80g raw cashew nuts - 2
skinned chicken breasts, cut into 1 cm slices – 1 T corn flour – 1 small egg,
beaten – 2 T peanut oil for frying – 3cm piece of fresh ginger, grated – 2 fat
cloves of garlic, chopped - 1 small white onion, chopped into 4cm pieces – 6
green beans, chopped into 3 cm lengths – 4 baby corns, sliced – 1 small red
pepper, cut into 3 cm cubes – 2 spring onions, chopped into 2 cm lengths – 1 T
sweet chilli sauce – 2 T light soy sauce -1/2 cup good chicken stock – 1 cup
bean sprouts
Dry fry the cashew nuts till nicely toasted, then set
aside. Mix the chicken, cornflour and egg and set aside while you do your
preparation on the vegetables. When ready, heat your wok till smoking, then add
the oil and quickly fry your chicken on all sides. Remove and set aside. Stir
fry the onion quickly until the edges brown but it stays quite firm. Add the
ginger and garlic to the pan and throw in all the other vegetables except the
bean sprouts and quickly stir fry for two minutes. Put in the sauces and the stock
and cook for another two minutes. Add the chicken and cook for a couple of
minutes until it is just done. Throw in the bean sprouts and cashew nuts, stir,
taste and add more soy if necessary, then serve immediately with fluffy boiled
jasmine rice.
There is a huge and rapidly growing
variety of interesting things to occupy your leisure time here in the Western
Cape. There
are so many interesting things to do in our world of food and wine that we have
made separate list for each month for which we have information. To see what’s happening in our world of
food and wine (and a few other cultural events), visit
our Events Calendar.
All the events are listed in date order and we already have a large number of
exciting events to entertain you right through the year.
Learn about wine and cooking
We receive a lot of enquiries from people who want to learn more about wine. Cathy Marston and The Cape Wine Academy both run wine
education courses, some very serious and others more geared to fun. You can see
details of Cathy’s WSET and other courses here and here and the CWA courses here.
Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of
cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen here.
Pete Ayub, who makes our very popular Prego sauce, runs evening cooking classes at Sense of Taste, his
catering company in Maitland. We can recommend them very highly, having enjoyed
his seafood course. Check
his programme here. Nadège Lepoittevin-Dasse has cooking
classes in Fish Hoek and conducts cooking tours to Normandy. You can see more details here. Emma
Freddi runs the Enrica Rocca cooking courses at her
home in Constantia. Brett Nussey’s Stir Crazy courses are now being
run from Dish Food and Social’s premises in Main Road Observatory (opposite
Groote Schuur hospital).
10th April 2013
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 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. Our Avast! ®
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