.

Thursday, September 19, 2013

130918 Main Ingredient's MENU - 30th Blaauwklippen Blending Competition Awards, Heritage Day, Caramel 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.adamastorbacchus.com/ http://www.adamastorphotos.com/

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Cormorants face the gathering storm

In this week’s MENU:

30th Blaauwklippen Blending Competition Awards

Heritage Day

Caramel sauce

Follow this link to see our Main Ingredient blogs, because to tell our whole story here would take too much space. Click on Bold words in the text of this edition to open links to pictures, blogs, pertinent websites or more information. Follow us on Twitter: @mainingmenu

This week’s Product menu: Truffles are the flavour of the moment and truffle related products are bmoving out as fast as we can replenish our stock. Must be the wintry weather! In addition, we continue to receive enquiries for Mediterranean and Middle Eastern products like sumac and za’atar and for Puy lentils, black beans, beluga lentils and other pulses. We do have all of these currently in stock. We surmise many of you are using Ottolenghi cookbooks! Our online shop shows our range of rare and exciting products which you are unlikely to find elsewhere in South Africa. See it here

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.

A relatively quiet week has given us a chance to catch our breath and spend a little time doing essential things around the house and entertain a few friends to a dinner party. Off again tomorrow to Muratie for the Cape Winelands Cooking Challenge, more about which next week.

30th Blaauwklippen Blending Competition Awards If you are in a wine club that meets regularly, you probably know about this annual completion. If you don’t, be sure to enter your club next year. Or you could use the time in the next year to form your own club. You can get details on the Blaauwklippen web site. For a small charge they send you a box of wine and instructions on what to blend and how to blend it.

We have certainly taken part several times over the years as member of our wine club, the Oenophiles and had great fun doing the blending of the bottles of different Blaauwklippen wines into an acceptable blend for Blaauwklippen to market and sell. One thing it does illustrate very clearly is how complicated and how finite it is to blend wine. We have found that it teaches wine lovers not to be so blasé about the wine they are drinking.

We attended the award ceremony at Blaauwklippen last Friday, where we met all the possible winners, and many of the people responsible for starting this competition, who were really surprised at how quickly the years have gone by. Walter Finlayson, Alan Mullins and Angela Lloyd told us how it had started and how it had evolved over the years to become the success that it is. This year, they decided to create a small side competition and invited all the media to enter their blends and we took part in this, sadly without success. The winners were the Natalia Wine Society from Durban and this is their third time of winning, so these people obviously know what they are doing. Interestingly there are two other clubs who have also won the award three times. The media award was taken by winemag.co.za. Congratulations to all. Click here to see the photos and what we had for lunch.

Here’s your Heritage Day Steve Jeffrey of The Charcuterie will be releasing a once off limited release of two unique boerewors’ available on Saturday only at The Neighbourgoods Market. As he says, “To celebrate our national heritage on National Braai Day, what better ingredients than Brandy & Coke and Mrs Ball’s Chutney and Old Brown Sherry!!”

1. Brandy & Coke with fragrant sweet spice notes and roasted coriander.

Mrs Ball’s Chutney with warm piquant spice notes laden with apricots poached in old Brown Sherry

Their normal range of seven unique fresh sausages will also be available. Come and try and buy.

Special things to do on Heritage Day can be found in our Events Calendar

Recipe We had a dinner party this week and Lynne made one of our favourite desserts, a classic Tart Tatin. We tried another variation this week and used good apples and a small tin of pineapple rings. Lynne arranged them in the centre with a cherry in each ring. We had this recently at The French Connection and particularly liked the caramel sauce they served with it. It is much easier to make than it seems, if a little risky as making caramel can be hot and dangerous. Just be careful.

Caramel sauce

200g / 1cup white sugar - 90g butter - 120g cream

Put the sugar in a thick bottomed deep pan and cook on medium until it melts. Keep swirling the pan so that the sugar can cook evenly, but do not stir or it will crystallize.

Once the sugar has melted and reached a deep brown colour, move it off the heat and add the butter all at once. It will foam up, so be careful. Stir until it's completely melted into the caramel. Then pour in the cream - it may still be foaming - and whisk until you have a good sauce.

You can bottle this and keep it in the fridge for about two weeks. Warm slightly if you want to serve it with dessert. Or you can pour it over a cake, ice cream, tarts, crumbles, pancakes, brownies, waffles even toast., there are endless delights.

If you want a salted caramel sauce, stir in 1 teaspoon of sea salt.

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. It needs updating and we’ll do that tomorrow. 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. We plan to visit their French establishment after Vinexpo. 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). 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

18th September 2013

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 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.

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Blaauwklippen Blending Competition awards lunch

Each year the label for the bottle is changed. This is the bright and fun painting of the label done by artist Frans Groenewald. They will fill in the names of the winners when the label is printed

A welcome glass of Blaauwklippen White Zinfandel

Some interesting canapés:

Duck in puff pastry

Tiny feta and spinach quiches

The best were pancakes filled with smoked salmon and topped with a dot of cream cheese and salmon caviar with a sprig of dill

Alan Mullins, one of the originators of the blending competition with PR whizz Nicolette Waterford

Prizes? No, gifts for all attending, which included some beautiful Vitria wine glasses and a magnum of the winning wine

Two long tables sit down for lunch and the awards

The menu for the day

Wine Maker and GM of Blaauwklippen Rolf Zeitvogel tells us the history of the competition and that the wine we will drink with our lunch will be the as yet unidentified winning blend

Our starter of chicken ballontine stuffed with olives, peppers and chicken farce, accompanied by a bangle of crisp cheese, atop a moist mushroom and feta quiche. The chicken was a little dry, but the stuffing was deliciously complex. Served with Blaauwklippen 2013 Chenin Blanc

Walter Finlayson, past winemaker at Blaauwklippen, tells us about his role in the formation of the competition before he went on to Glen Carlou

Anel Grobler of Spit or Swallow tweeting the awards to her followers

Rolf Zeitvogel and Walter Finlayson

Rolf chats to John, who was from the first wine club to win 30 years ago. They are also from Durban

Dave Hudson of Cape Town represented another previous winner

Dave and Janet Hudson

Cape Wine Master Clive Torr has been a judge of the competition over the years

Angela Lloyd tells us how the competition mushroomed from the original entries. They never imagined how long it would last and how enthusiastically it would be supported, by the sponsors and the wine clubs

Natalie Campbell of Blaauwklippen, PA to Rolf Zeitvogel and co-ordinator of the competition

Nicolette Waterford. Her public relations company, Waterford Communications, organised this very well run event

Media making notes: Chris von Ulmenstein and Norman McFarlane

Suzette Biermann, representing finalist Oude Molen Wynkring from Potchefstroom in the North-West Province

Nominee Laurence Davies of the Natalia Wine Society thought the wine tasted a bit familiar

Dwayne and Helen Embery, represented Web Wine Society from Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape

Alan Mullins enjoying lunch and the awards

Sasha van Zyl of winemag.co.za, who won the media award

Blaauwklippen's assistant winemaker, Albert Basson

And here is the winning wine for us to taste

Our main course was an extremely tender roasted lamb rump on a smoked potato purée, (thank heavens not over-smoked) with a deep and rich black olive jus and perfectly cooked baby vegetables This was served with an anchovy and caper butter, which Lynne felt added too much salty contrast to the rich sweet lamb, so she added only a tiny dab

Denise Huff of Vitria Glass, one of the sponsors of the awards

Seated at the end of the table are the four most valuable members of staff from the cellar. They have to organise all the bottling of the wines to be blended, their packaging and dispatch to the clubs. Then they have to assemble the blends which are entered for tasting, as well as make up the final winning blend. Work well done

Walter and Jill Finlayson

First award is the Media award to winemag.co.za. Receiving it from Rolf is Sasha van Zyl

Natalie

And the award for the best blend 2013 goes to Laurence Davies of Natalia Wine Society in Durban

He is delighted and amused that he spotted it when he tasted the winning wine with lunch

Lots of smiles from the award winners

Here, assembled, are all the finalists and the winners with Rolf and Albert

Laurence and Jenny Davies with Rolf Zeitvogel

Rolf with Helen and Dwayne Embery

and with the Biermanns from Potchefstroom

Laurence and Jenny, proudly taking the trophy home

And, finally, our dessert - soft stewed and macerated pear with a deeply delicious chocolate mousse, slices of chocolate Madeira cake, Chantilly cream and a strawberry vodka jelly, served with a glass of Blaauwklippen Zinfandel Noble Late Harvest

Friday, September 13, 2013

130912 Main Ingredient's MENU - Groote Post & Darling Voorkamer Fest, Franschhoek Uncorked & after, Sausages for sale, DGB trade tasting

Main Ingredient’s weekly E-Journal

Gourmet Foods & Ingredients

Eat In Guide’s Five time Outstanding Outlet Award Winner

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

+27 21 439 3169 / +27 83 229 1172

Click here to Subscribe to MENU or to contact us

Mountains, clouds, light and shade, Devonvale, Stellenbosch

In this week’s MENU:

Groote Post

Darling Voorkamer Fest

Franschhoek Uncorked and afterwards

Sausages for sale

DGB trade tasting

This week’s Product menu: We have had lots of enquiries lately for middle esastern products like sumac and za’atar and for puy lentils, black beans, beluga lentils and other pulses. We do have all of these currently in stock. We surmise many of you are using Ottolenghi cookbooks! Our online shop shows our range of rare and exciting products which you are unlikely to find elsewhere in South Africa. See it here

FIESTA TIME

From mid August until about the beginning of December, it is festival time in the Cape and what wonderful fun our festivals are. We try to keep you up to date by publishing any information we can find or are sent on our Events calendar and it is worth checking them out. This week, on Saturday, there will be the Fork and Cork festival in Wellington, a chance to go from farm to farm, tasting what they have on offer for the price of one entry which covers all. Sadly, because we work on Saturdays, we are not able to be there but hope lots of you go. Wellington is only one hour away and we know that they have lots of fun planned. Check out their web site here. And, in October, Robertson will hold one of its best, Wine on the River, which we will definitely attend.

Two festivals which we have managed to attend this past week were the Darling Voorkamerfest on Friday and Franschhoek Uncorked on Sunday.

GROOTE POST We started Thursday by taking a bus from the Waterfront to Groote Poste Wine estate where we were treated to a lunch at their restaurant Hilda’s and enjoyed the hospitable company of owner Nick Pentz and winemaker Lukas Wentzel. Lunch was a lovely chance to taste through their wines and then enjoy some of them with lunch. The day was sunny, some of the spring flowers were out and we really enjoyed ourselves.

Then, suddenly, it was 5 o’clock and time to get back into the bus and proceed to Darling for the

VOORKAMERFEST Darling’s Voorkamerfest celebrated their tenth anniversary and was a first for us. Nick Pentz of Groote Post invited us to join him at Groote Post for lunch and then in the town for the Festival. It is very innovative and is there to showcase the diversity of the area, in every way possible. Yes, there is a festival site in front of Evita’s Peron where you can buy local produce, taste wine and craft beers from the area and buy some lovely things to eat. But the purpose of the festival is very, very clever. You buy a ticket for R195 on Friday and R225 for Saturday and Sunday and then you stand in a taxi queue (they use the locals) according to the colour of your tickets. Two local minibus taxis (capacity 14 seated) turn up and in you pile. You are then on a magical mystery tour. Your ticket entitles you to go to three different venues in private homes and you only find out who is going to entertain you when you arrive in their voorkamers (parlours). Our first venue was a classic Darling turn of the 19/20^th century home owned by Ineke Palthe - Theatre Hostess and long time VKF supporter who lives here. It has a lovely garden with broekie lace and a stoep and 30 odd people were squeezed into the front room for a performance of two drummers: Savuka’s Barry van Zyl & Daniel Bloem from Holland presented NATIVE RHYTHM

Back into the two taxis and off over the railway lines to the township and a tiny white RDP house where we literally crammed ourselves into the tiny main room for a very funny comedian Michael Kudakwashe, who had Lynne in hysterics with his take off of a really thick Scottish accent, then Cockney, before moving on to other comedy. These performances are not long, perhaps 10 to 15 minutes, but were really appreciated by the very mixed audience of locals and tourists.

Our third trip was to a slightly larger and older house owned by a very house proud and welcoming lady and there we were treated to a performance of a singer and accompanist. It was a delightful experience, very real and we will definitely try to attend next year. Then it was back to the festival grounds. We had time for a local beer and then it was back into our bus for the drive home which took just an hour down the West Coast road. More details and photographs are here.

FRANSCHHOEK UNCORKED AND AFTERWARDS Sunday saw us travelling to Franschhoek for Uncorked Festival. We began at Antonij Rupert farm where we tasted some Terra del Capo and Protea wines and looked at the special offers they had. Time melts when you are at festival like this and we had time to check into Val d’Or Guesthouse, where we had found a reasonable special for one night of R750 for two with breakfast. Then it was off to our lunch booking at Maison. This was the restaurant Lynne most wanted to return to. We really enjoyed the food there last summer and they have been closed for a couple of months this winter, so this was our first chance. We had a really good, if rather expensive, lunch and will return again. We bought a box of their very good Chenin Blanc which we’d enjoyed with lunch for R45 a bottle. It does give you pause though when your lunch bill is more than your accommodation bill! See photos and comments here.

Next, we had been invited by Irene Waller of La Bri to come and join in one of her vertical tastings of La Bri Shiraz. We arrived in time at 3.30, but no one else did. It is very disappointing for farms when people make bookings but simply don’t turn up. There was a lot to see and many places to visit at Franschhoek Uncorked but, in our ethics, a booking is a booking. Make a commitment and stick to it. We loved the shiraz tasting, all were good, some vintages more so than others, and there is a distinct progression in quality from the time Irene took over the reins. Click here for comments and photos.

We had been invited by manager Jason Ratner to come to dinner at French Connection that evening and must confess that, after a large lunch, we did find this a bit of a stretch. We very carefully selected two courses from the large and tempting menu and were not disappointed at all. Click here to see the pictures of the food and our comments.

On Monday, after a tiny lie in and a good breakfast at Val d’Or, we had intended to do some of the Champagne route but we could not contact any one at Morena, so went on to Stony Brook where we tasted their excellent MCC made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir and then tasted their other wines. Photos and comments here

Then on to Glenwood to see what was happening there after the Japanese restaurant closed. They now have the chef from Bon Vivant in Franschhoek running a bistro there and it is turning out to be a success. We tasted some wine and then moved on to the village for lunch. See photos here

Then it was back into the village to visit Pasch du Plooy at Dutch East restaurant. He had invited us to come and see his new butchery which is making quite a splash in Franschhoek. It was time for lunch so we had a quick meal, a draught beer each and then it was time to be on our way home. Pasch would not let us pay for the lunch and also sent us on our way with a package of several of his products. We had the cheese grillers for dinner that night, the nicely fatty streaky smoked bacon went into a Spaghetti carbonara the next night and we took the lamb, beef and pork sausage to our wine club last night, where it was much appreciated. And we ate his good ham in our lunch sandwiches during the week. This gives you an indication of what he is doing but he also has fresh meat and game.

SAUSAGES FOR SALE Just to let you know that Steve Jeffrey has added an exciting selection of fresh and very interesting flavoured sausages to his range and is selling these at the Biscuit Mill on Saturdays. He does cook up some for you to taste so you need to come and sample them. We tasted the Toulouse and it is very good indeed – lots of garlic and parsley. And we have a pack of one of each still to sample and will be reporting back in the next edition of MENU.

DGB Trade Tasting This was held last Thursday evening and was one of the reasons why we went to bed at 3 on Friday morning. Held this year in the conference facility at the Westin Cape Town at the Convention Centre, they certainly put on a great tasting. There was a never ending supply of good canapés and some very interesting wines to taste. Two from Boschendal particularly impressed Lynne: The 2011 Cecil John Reserve Shiraz is complex and full of chocolate cherries and spices with the layers of mulberry raspberries and cherries, white pepper and cinnamon, this is a wine to treasure. Their Grand Reserve 2011 is a wildly unusual blend of 72% Petit Verdot and 28% shiraz. Full of Parma violets on the rose it fills your mouth with fruit and soft tannins and will last well but was so delicious it might be difficult to keep away from. We also loved John Loubser’s new Steenberg Sauvignon Blanc sparkler, which is fresh and lively and has a label bound to jump off the shelf in wine shops. His Black Swan 2012 Sauvignon Blanc is full of leafy green flavours, elegance and good minerality. Brampton impressed with the Rosé 2012 which is very French in style and just what we need for summer lunchtime drinking. We also tasted the Graham Beck impressive range of wines and bubbles, of which we have many favourites, especially the Brut Zero and Cuvée Clive. Lourensford’s MCC is spectacularly decorated with medals; we enjoyed it and would have done so even if the bottle had been less ornate. Some photos here

Recipe Sadly, perhaps, this has been such a busy week that Lynne has spent very little time in the kitchen and has not evolved any new recipes. Next week should be more productive…

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

12th September 2013

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