Stormy weather on the Sea Point beachfront
Franschhoek
has occupied a large share of our time in the past week with lunches at Haute
Cabriere and Dutch East and the annual Bastille Festival. We'll be back there
again in the next few days to cover stories that we'll tell you about next
week. As we write this, there is a marvellous North Westerly storm pounding the
Cape and bringing with it lots of longed for rain. We hear from our friends in the winelands
that it is raining hard and soaking the vines well. May it continue and help to
fill up our very empty dams after the long dry summer.
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Bastille Day lunch at Dutch East, Franschhoek Franschhoek celebrates Bastille Day every
year on the weekend closest to the 14th of July. This year we were all a little
subdued by the dreadful news of the attack in Nice on Bastille Day, but
determined not to be deterred by terrorism and to continue our involvement in
honour of the people who died so cruelly. We had been invited to lunch at Dutch
East restaurant in the middle of Franschhoek before we attended the festival
Sunday at the Franschhoek Bastille Festival The Festival was at the top of the main
road and next to the Huguenot monument. The layout was very impressive this
year. The marquees were much wider and there seemed to be so much more space.
Finding a seat, however, is still as difficult as people reserve empty seats
for ages while their friends do the rounds tasting, leaving others standing
around. There was lots of food from the top restaurants, pulled pork seemed to
be the dish of the day from many. And the wines from Franschhoek can be very
impressive
Mandela Day wine tasting at Kitima’s new Raya's Kitchen Kathy and Dane Raath have a good list of
wines and beers which they represent in the trade and this was a chance to
taste these together with samples of the food at the recently opened Raya's
Kitchen. This new Asian restaurant, serving authentic food from the East, is in
Mandela Rhodes Place with entrances on Wale and Church Street in Town. Kitima
in Hout Bay is very popular and now you can experience some of the food here in
town. You will find some of the wines which KRP represent on their menu. Have a
look at their website http://rayakitchen.co.za/
We
had a roast leg of lamb, deboned, from Woolworths on Friday night and it was
tough. Why are we paying premium prices for meat like this? It was cooked as
instructed on the packet. So what to do with the remainder? A Moroccan Tagine would
tenderise it. We had lots of lamb gravy left over so that became the stock. You
can use cooked lamb or raw. Ras al Hanout is a blend of spices used in Morocco,
it is now available at good grocers or spice shops like Atlas. You can use many
other vegetables: courgettes, butternut, aubergine, baby potatoes etc. Just
cube or half them. And you do not have to add meat.
1
T Olive oil - 1 large onion, finely chopped - 3 small carrots, sliced - 3 or 4
cloves of garlic, crushed -1 or 2
teaspoons Ras al Hanout spice mix - half a kilo lamb cut into cubes - 1 red pepper cut into 3 cm pieces - 10 green
beans, sliced - 1 tin of chick peas, drained - 250 ml tomato passata - 500ml
lamb or chicken stock - 6 or 8 baby tomatoes - 6 dates, roughly chopped - 6
dried apricots, roughly chopped - 20g flaked almonds
In
a cast iron casserole with a lid, fry the onion in the oil till soft and golden
but not browning. Stir in the carrots and continue to fry for another 4 to 5
minutes. Add the garlic and then the Ras al Hanout. Stir well for a minute to
warm the spices. Add the lamb and stir well to incorporate the flavours. If
raw, brown it all over. Then add the rest of the vegetables and the chick peas.
Pour on the stock and the tomato passata, the dates and apricots and stir. Put
on a lid and put into the oven. If you have a Tagine, transfer to that. Cook
for 1 or 2 hours or until the meat is lovely and tender. Check that the liquid
does not cook out, add some water mid way through if it looks a bit dry, you do
need a sauce as you will serve this with cous cous (or rice or flat breads if
you prefer). Just before serving sprinkle on the flaked almonds
Tomato in food does overtake many delicate
wines, so can spices and chilli. The wine that went so well with this dish was
a Garagiste wine from Topaz made by Cape Wine Master Clive Torr from Stellenbosch
grapes. It is a 2009 Cabernet Franc/Cabernet Sauvignon blend. This is full of
robust cassis fruit and also some lovely savouriness from the Cab Franc. If you
have some, try it with this sort of food and you will enjoy it. It was from our
cellar and I am not sure Clive still has any to sell. But it might be worth
looking for, he has always made excellent hand crafted wines. Some heavy red
wines wash away the taste of the food, this added another dimension to it
20th July 2016
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