.

Thursday, April 03, 2014

140403 Main Ingredient's MENU - Lunch in Gordon’s Bay, John’s Wine Tours, Thelema trade day, Farewell Supper Party,La Boheme, Pork belly

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

Gourmet Foods & Ingredients

Eat In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner

www.mainingredient.biz - http://www.adamastorphotos.com/

Follow our blogs at http://www.adamastorbacchus.com/

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

A gemsbok (Oryx gazella) at Groote Post, Darling Hills

In this week’s MENU:

Lunch in Gordon’s Bay

John’s Wine Tours

Thelema trade day

Farewell Supper Party

La Boheme

Pork belly

This week’s Product menu - The weather seems to be changing rapidly into winter, missing out our short Autumn. So menu thoughts are turning towards more substantial dishes. We stock several different rices and they can all be used as the base of some amazing rib sticking food. There are creamy Violone Nano and Carnaroli rices from Italy for risotto or suppli balls, Bomba rice from Spain for the perfect paella and black rice from the East.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find.... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

Lunch in Gordon’s Bay We took our visiting Dutch friends through to Somerset West to have morning tea with a favourite aunt and decided to go and have some lunch afterwards. We had recommendations from friends in the area for good places to go and we ended up in the harbour at Gordon’s Bay, as it was a really beautifully sunny day and we like good views with our lunch. The original destination was called The Tavern, but has been renamed and was full of smokers. It was a bit dark, grimy and pub-like, with not many people eating, so we fled the smoke for a very clean and quite clinical looking place, also in the harbour called, appropriately, Harbour Lights. It was purchased a couple of years ago by a South African Italian who runs it. They have a very casual fish and chip take away/cafe downstairs, but we wanted a table and some wine so headed upstairs. The menu is a little limited and even a little bit scary, as the prices are rather high, even for seafood, but it turned out that they had a seafood stew special for R165. Each dish was topped with 2 crayfish tails and we all plumped for this. Redolent of garlic and a little chilli and cooked by their two Angolan chefs, we enjoyed it very much. We had a good view of the harbour and a bottle of Sophie Te’blanche and might just return there one day. See it here

John’s Wine Tours John runs extremely personalised wine tours, goes to places the normal public would never get. His clients get to meet people normally in the background like the winemakers and owners and gets to taste wines unavailable to most visitors, often from tanks and barrels in the cellar. He is ably assisted in this by our many friends in the wine industry who really push the boat out for him and his tour clients. Last Friday, a repeat booking, he took an American client who had previously joined him on a tour and wanted to go somewhere different. She was on the cruise liner Crystal Serenity with her husband for a round the world tour. They brought along two fellow passengers. This is what they did. A big tranche of gratitude is due to all the wonderful people of Darling whose generosity made this tour so successful.

Thelema trade day This was held at Dear Me restaurant in Longmarket Street on Tuesday 1^st of April and we tasted through the entire range of Thelema and Sutherland wines. They have some absolute crackers and you will be sorry if you don’t source some of them soon before they sell out. The Thelema 2012 Chardonnay is already sold out although there may be some in good wine shops and you will certainly find in on good wine lists at good restaurants. We think the Thelema Shiraz may well win awards, the Merlot 2010 is probably the best Merlot we have tasted this year, soft, fruity, no stalky green notes, and no lactic either. The Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon 2009 is an absolute classic, full of all the forest floor and dark berries one expects. The Mint Cabernet is also one to try, different and good with food we think, lots of chocolate and mint flavours.. The Sutherland Viognier Roussanne is excellent, the Sauvignon Blanc a lovely example of what Elgin grapes can do. There are Rieslings from Thelema and Sutherland. Both are very good, but the Thelema 2011 showed a little more terpene on the nose than the Sutherland - perhaps because it comes from a warmer area, although the 2009 Thelema we tasted a little later had less terpene than the 2011. Pictures of the tasting are here

Farewell Supper Party Last Sunday, we gave a small supper for our friends who departing to Holland after a month’s holiday here and their local relatives. Lynne made Snoek pâté, braised pork belly, duck fat roast potatoes, roasted Mediterranean vegetables and a raspberry jelly. No one was driving. Taxis had been arranged, so we pushed the boat out as far as wine was concerned. Our welcome drink was L’Ormarins Blanc de Blanc MCC. We had some delicious 2010 Cape Point Reserve Sauvignon Blanc with the fish pâté served with crudités, and two bottles of 2009 Beaumont Shiraz Mourvedre. We opened a bottle of Nuy White Muscadel 2006 with the dessert, a variation of Lynne’s red raspberry jelly, made this time with a bottle of Laborie’s Lazy Days Rosé, and then we moved on to Italian Gorgonzola, so some port had to be found. As the first bottle of Overgaauw 1998 was judged a little dry, we put that aside for a soon to be cooked venison in port recipe we love and opened a Landskroon 1995. Then it was time for coffee and we broached the new bottle of Laborie Alambic brandy we bought on our stay there last week. It was a lively party, not too inebriated as people were doing small portions, but it is so nice to be able to do this once in a while and not worry about people driving. We took a few photographs

La Boheme Our friends wanted to make sure they had a good supper before the flight back to Europe on Monday, so we suggested one of our favourite haunts - La Boheme in Sea Point’s Main Road. We had a good early evening meal and then it was time to head for the airport. Click here to see what we ate.

This week’s recipe Lynne thought you might like her recipe for the Braised Pork Belly. She has adapted this over the years from Ruben Riffles recipe in his cookbook Reuben Cooks (credit and respect where credit is due) and it works every time.

Ruben only used 500g of pork which feeds two, Lynne usually doubles or even quadruples the quantity of meat for a dinner party. She finds that the quantities of the marinade/cooking liquids work for up to 1 kg of pork; if you increase it, then adjust the liquid quantities accordingly.

1 kg Pork Belly, preferably pre- boned - 2 cups chicken stock – zest of one orange – juice of 1 orange – 1 cup of light soya sauce – 3 cm piece of fresh ginger, finely grated or chopped – 1 whole, but broken star anise – 1 x 5cm cinnamon stick, broken in 2 or 3 pieces – ½ cup sugar

Mix up all the ingredients. Put the pork, skin side up, into a deep roasting pan or dish which is quite a good fit, with just a little space around the pork. Pour over the marinade and cover with foil. Roast in the oven for 4 hours at 160°C. Inspect every hour or so and make sure it does not dry out. Just add a little water to keep the cooking juices liquid if you see them drying out. You need them for a sauce later.

Remove from the oven and if there are any bones in the pork, remove them carefully now. Then replace the pork in the pan with the sauce, recover with foil and place a brick or any other heavy object that nearly covers the pan on top. Lynne uses a large plastic container filled with water. Leave in the fridge for 3 hours or until completely cool. Or overnight. Skim off any fat on top. Carefully remove the skin. Transfer the meat into a serving dish, pour on the sauce and reheat in the oven until hot. Then serve.

You can try to make crackling with the skin.

Buying from us On Line 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 on line shop. We can send your requirements to you anywhere in South Africa. Please do not pay until we have confirmed availability and invoiced you, then you pay and then we deliver or post. 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. Click here to see our OnLine Shop.

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

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. Events outside the Western Cape are listed here.

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. Karen Glanfield has taken over the UnWined wine appreciation courses from Cathy. See the details here

Chez Gourmet in Claremont has a programme of cooking classes. A calendar of their classes can be seen 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). Lynn Angel runs the Kitchen Angel cooking school and does private dinners at her home. She holds hands-on cooking classes for small groups on Monday and Wednesday evenings. She trained with Raymond Blanc, and has been a professional chef for 25 years. More info here

26th March 2014

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 online shop 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 and standard 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!^® Anti-Virus software is updated at least daily and our system is scanned continually for viruses.

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. We own our mailing software and keep our mailing list strictly confidential. 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.

Supper at La Boheme

Our friends wanted to make sure they had a good supper before the flight back to Europe on Monday so we suggested one of our favourite haunts La Boheme in Sea Point Main Road. We had a good early evening meal and then it was time to head for the airport.

Succulent Duck confit leg on spinach with cubed sweet potato and two duck wontons. Perfect if you are on a Banting diet – just give the wontons away to someone who isn’t

Kingklip in a good sauce on dauphinoise potatoes

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Lunch in Gordon's Bay

We took our visiting Dutch friends through to Somerset West to have morning tea with a favourite aunt and decided to go and have some lunch afterwards. We had recommendations from friends in the area for good places to go and we ended up in the harbour at Gordon’s Bay, as it was a really beautifully sunny day and we like good views with our lunch. The original destination was called The Tavern, but it has been renamed and was full of smokers. It was a bit dark, grimy and pub-like, with not many people eating, so we fled the smoke for a very clean and quite clinical looking place, also in the harbour called, appropriately, Harbour Lights. It was purchased a couple of years ago by a South African Italian who runs it. They have a very casual fish and chip take away/cafe downstairs, but we wanted a table and some wine so headed upstairs. The menu is a little limited and even a little bit scary, as the prices are rather high, even for seafood, but it turned out that they had a seafood stew special for R165. Each dish was topped with 2 crayfish tails and we all plumped for this. Redolent of garlic and a little chilli and cooked by their two Angolan chefs, we enjoyed it very much. We had a good view of the harbour and a bottle of Sophie Te’blanche and might just return there one day. The restaurant is bright and airy, clean and neat

With lovely views of the yacht harbour and the coast beyond. The sun shaded doors slide open for more fresh air

Our seafood ‘stew” consisted of mussels, fish, prawns, calamari and two crayfish tails each. Lots of garlic, a little chilli and fresh herbs

A view from the harbour

The owner treated us to a dessert of torta, a light Italian sponge cake topped with chocolate and sandwiched with crème patisserie and fresh fruit.

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A Farewell Supper Party

The table laid with suitable glasses for the wines to be served

Long and slow braised pork, served in its cooking sauce

Duck fat roast potatoes with an outer shell as crisp as glass

A medley of roasted vegetables. Lynne always roasts them whole, drizzled with olive oil and strewn with fresh herbs, then slices them and deglazes the pan with a little more olive oil and a small amount of wine vinegar, which makes a good dressing for them.

Clockwise from 12 o’clock are butternut, aubergine, sweet potato and whole roasted garlic, red onion cut like a flower, red pepper, carrots, courgettes and another aubergine

Guests helping themselves

and enjoying the meal

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A tour to Darling

We'd made appointments with Ormonde, Charles Withington in his lovely Darling Wine Shop and Groote Post. Leaving the harbour at about 9 am, we reached Ormonde about an hour later. Zia du Toit, the marketing manager met us and introduced us to Adré Rheeder who took us into the vienyards.

Ormonde General Manager Adré Rheeder talks about the terroir of the farm

We tasted the Alexanderfontein, Ondine and Ormonde wines with chocolates made to suit the wines

Marketing Manager Zia du Toit led the tasting

After this great experience, we paid a visit to Charles Withington

at the Darling Wine Shop

who gave us some of his own wines to taste and his 7 year old potstill brandy.

From there, we moved to Groote Post for lunch at Hilda's Kitchen in the old Groote Post manor house

A starter plate of Darling charcuterie

Salmon trout salad

Mushroom quiche, another choice as starter

A seafood pie, made with kingklip, mussels and calamari

The Old Man's steak roll served with garlic crème and hand cut chips was chosen by two of us. It was so good that John tucked in before he remembered to take a picture. It was delicious, the meat being well-matured, full-flavoured and very tender, served medium rare

After lunch, we moved to the winery for a tasting with Wimpie Borman. As we walked in, we were surprised to see Lukas Wentzel, the winemaker. As it was mid-harvest, we did not expect to see him, but he interrupted his busy schedule to give us a taste of the fermenting semillon and sauvignon blanc from the tank,

after which Wimpie led us through the range of Groote Post wines

Groote Post is not only a wine farm. Peter Pentz, the owner, is a dairy farmer who also grows wine with his son Nicholas. A large part of the farm is a nature conservancy, with a good number of animals living in a natural environment. Wimpie took is in their safari vehicle

for a tour of the farm

They have a breeding herd of quagga. These are a subspecies of the Plains Zebra (Equus Quagga) which does not have stripes on its rear quarters. It became extinct through excessive hunting in the 19th century. It is being revived through selective breeding and there is a small herd on Groote Post

as well as other animals such as eland, wildebeest, springbok and oryx

After the tour, we hit the road for Cape Town harbour and the ship, with a cheery farewell from Nick Pentz and Lukas Wentzel

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Thelema wine trade tasting at Dear Me

This was held at Dear Me restaurant in Longmarket Street on Tuesday, 1st April and we tasted through the entire range of Sutherland and Thelema wines. They have some absolute crackers and you will be if you don’t source some of them soon before they sell out. The Thelema 2012 Chardonnay is already sold out although there may be some in good wine shops and you will certainly find in on good wine lists at good restaurants. We think the Thelema Shiraz may well win awards; the Merlot 2010 is probably the best Merlot we have tasted this year, soft, fruity, with no stalky green notes, and no lactic either. The Thelema Cabernet Sauvigon 2009 is an absolute classic, full of all the forest floor and dark berries one expects. The Mint Cabernet is also one to try, different and good with food, we think, lots of chocolate and mint flavours.. The mint is a characteristic we have always found in Thelema cabs. The Sutherland Viogner Roussanne is excellent, the Sauvignon Blanc a lovely example of what Elgin grapes can do.

The interior of the restaurant

Welcomed by a glass of a Thelema classic - their 1994 Blanc de Blanc MCC. We had a good bottle, very rich and full of elegant notes of citrus

The trade loves tasting and discussing wine

The Thelema Sutherland wines are distributed by John Collins, seen here with Kyle Martin, one of his representatives

Marketing man Thomas Webb and Diaan van Zyl

Amanda Visser wearing the Thelema symbol of the phoenix rising from the fire

Thelema owner and cellarmaster Giles Webb

A stairway to madness?

The menu for Dear Me, photographed by the door under streetlights

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Wednesday, March 26, 2014

140326 Main Ingredient's MENU - Vrede and Lust, Laborie, ATKV Oesfees, Cellarbake@Nitida, SASSI Chefs, Mt Nelson Dinner, Anchovy & Herb sauce

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

Gourmet Foods & Ingredients

Eat In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner

www.mainingredient.biz - http://www.adamastorphotos.com/

Follow our blogs at http://www.adamastorbacchus.com/

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Cape Sugarbird (Promerops cafer)

Lynne says we use too many pictures of birds, but John liked this - taken at Constantia Glen yesterday (they were very active and made a lot of noise) and we do prefer to use photographs taken within the week

In this week’s MENU:

Vrede and Lust Lunch

Laborie Lazy Days

ATKV Oesfees at Solms Delta

Cellarbake@Nitida

SASSI Seafood Circle of Chefs

Wine & Dine Dinner at the Mount Nelson

Anchovy and Herb sauce

This week’s Product menu - Winter seems to be making a very early return and people seem to be thinking of stews and casserole and soups. Dont forget about our good range of stock cubes, granules and French mustards, all of which help to flavour food. A dollop of good grainy mustard in a beef stew will really light it up.

If you can find it in the supermarket, we don't usually stock it, just the products you would struggle to find.... Check our online shop to see more details and prices.

Vrede and Lust Lunch We attended an interesting tasting of all the white wines from this lovely farm on the edge of Franschhoek last Thursday and it was accompanied by a really delicious lunch in Lust, their restaurant. Not only did chef JP Smith cook great food, but we discovered that he is a master baker and the bread he produces is quite superb. We were lucky enough to be given a loaf to bring home and are now sad that they are so far away for when we want more. Next time you are passing, go and taste the excellent wines and the food and buy some bread to take home. Click here to see the photographs.

Laborie Lazy Days Would you like to completely pamper someone you love? Then take them for a break to Laborie in beautiful Paarl for a night or two. The room rate for one of their rooms starts at a very reasonable R585 pp with a huge breakfast served in the Manor House. See their website You can be welcomed by a bottle of their superb Blanc de Blanc bubbly (R110) on the terrace outside your suite. You can eat lunch at Harvest Restaurant on their terrace or dinner inside with soft candlelight and prices are reasonable. You can do a wine and chocolate pairing in the tasting room at R40 for three different wines paired with chocolate, or a charcuterie and cheese lunch on the lawn for R140 under the trees. And you can come home with boxes of wine at very reasonable prices. How do we know? We were invited there and were thoroughly spoilt for two days last week, doing all the above. Click here to see all the pictures.

ATKV Oesfees at Solms Delta This wonderful, very real Harvest Festival is a joy of music and laughter, great local food, and Solms Delta wine. The workers of Franschhoek mingle and have fun together with the paying public and It gives one such a lift to see how SA really does join together to celebrate a harvest, hard work and the future with exciting local music and food. There is such real South African Gees. We took our Dutch friends and they absolutely loved the event, as did we. Click here to see the photographs

Cellarbake@Nitida At last, a new and innovative way to showcase wine, this time with cakes, desserts and other baked goods. You bought an elegant champagne flute and five tokens for R100 and you could do five pairings of wine with a small tasting portion of cake, tart, pie etc. We had one each and we shared the 10 tastings, but you could buy more tokens and taste everything and you could buy full sized portions of cakes, tarts, puddings, cookies, bread or ice creams to enjoy with a glass of wine. Well known top artisanal bakers gathered from around the Cape to showcase their signature dishes, paired perfectly by culinary connoisseur and Cellarbake Wine Consultant Michael Olivier, with Nitida and Môreson wines. You could also do a huge high tea for only R165. Make a note for your diary next year, we do hope this successful event happens again. Nitida owners and founders of Cellarbake, Peta and Bernhard Veller were thrilled that Cellarbake@Nitida was received so well by all who were in search of something satisfyingly new and they look forward to its growth and development as an annual festival. We know that Tamsin Snyman worked very hard to get the best bakers to work at the festival. Have a look at it here

SASSI Seafood Circle of Chefs Take a remarkable turnout of top chefs from around the country, a good turnout of restaurateurs, wine people and media and an evening of absolutely appalling wet and unseasonally cold weather at Harbour House in the Waterfront and what do you have? A hugely successful evening despite non-stop rain and wind.. Luckily, there was plenty of shelter on the terrace while scrolls were awarded to chefs who are making great choices using sustainable fish from the WWF-SASSI Green list. We drank good wines and Harbour house produced some great dishes and sushi using the same sustainable fish. Click here to see more of the event.

Wine & Dine Dinner at the Mount Nelson on Thursday Just to remind you that there is going to be another of these great dinners, this time pairing Môreson’s wines with talented chef Rudi Liebenberg’s food this Friday, the 28th March. There is still a little space, so get your booking done today. How does Hot Smoked Monkfish on a squid ink and Prawn risotto paired with Môreson Mercator Chardonnay appeal to you? Or Nut and Seed crusted Venison with Môreson Pinotage? Yum

This week’s recipe Inspired by Sassi’s Green list, Lynne wanted to give you a recipe using Anchovies and this is the perfect sauce to serve with any fish or seafood dish. You might be astounded to know that it is also sensational if spread on a leg of lamb before roasting. Just use a little less olive oil so the paste is a little drier and easy to spread. It also goes well with veal cutlets and if you add some walnuts, you can turn this into a pesto. If you have some over add to fresh butter, roll up and freeze to use rounds on steak.

Anchovy and Herb sauce

12 anchovy fillets in oil, drained - 2 T Extra virgin olive oil – 2 large handfuls of flat parsley, roughly chopped – 2 T fresh thyme leaves - 3 garlic cloves, peeled and crushed – freshly milled black pepper – 2 T good balsamic vinegar

Blitz in a blender till you have a good green sauce with a little texture. Store in the fridge and use within a day or two. You can add a chilli if you want to spice this up a bit.

Food and wine (and a few other) events for you to enjoy

26th March 2014

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

About us

MENU, our weekly email newsletter, started as an advertising medium for Main Ingredient, our specialist retail grocery business. We opened our Sea Point shop in December 2002 because realised that there was a place in South Africa for a grocer catering to people with sophisticated tastes and needs. We moved the shop on line in 2010, but discontinued it in 2015, having decided that it is time to “retire” and concentrate on our writing, photography and tour guiding. MENU has a wide circulation and is read nationally and internationally.

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