The Prickly Pear or Turkish Fig

Most people don’t want to approach them.  “All those thorns!”

On the farm, Dagbreek in the rolling hills of Durbanville, on which I grew up, there was a huge prickly pear cactus at the end of the long lawn in front of the double gabled whitewashed house.  Close residents were all the ubiquitous fruits one found round old farm houses.  Loquat trees, lemons – the old thick skinned variety, pomegranates, quinces, a granadilla hedge, a blackberry plant or two, and mulberries.

When prickly pears were in season, there was always a plate of them in the large kitchen fridge with the heavy door for us to at when we got home from school.  More pip than flesh but it was the coolness which made them so attractive after walking up the drive in a heat which had crows sitting open mouthed in the trees and the cicadas screaming so loudly as to deafen you.

Maggie de Kock, who was first my grandmother and then my mother’s housekeeper had a way with all of this abundance of fruit.  She had a way with many things, her rusks I can still taste when I think of them.  Crisp and the aromatic aniseed whispering up the back of your nose.

She had a severe limp, and I can still see here walking down the lawn looking longingly at the prickly pears, bearing in her right hand a carpet broom and in her left a Lucky Star Pilchard tin.  A wicker basket had been deposited at the foot of the stairs leading up to the red Cobra-ed front stoep.

Once she reached the cactus, she walked round it sizing up the crop and choosing her victims.  They were then carefully removed with the tin can and placed in a row on the lawn.  Once she had sufficient, usually about 8, she would sweep them slowly up the lawn to the front stoep.  By them time she reached there, the prickly pears were devoid of thorns, now embedded wrong side up in the lawn.

Clever no?

Once at the foot of the stairs, she would pick up the basket, take it into the kitchen, peel them, slice them thinly and put them into a square white enameled container with its own lid.  Ten in the fridge in preparation for the post school raids.

Here is a rather badly lit picture of some we had recently.

Sliced chilled prickly pears

Jane Anne Hobbs, one of the finest cooks and bloggers in the Cape offers this salad on her blog.  Click here for the recipe.

Jane Anne's Prickly Pear and Feta Salad

Prickly pears are in the fruit sections of Supermarkets at the moment and seem to be free of thorns.

Do buy some and if you are not sure, sweep them across your lawn a while.

Watermelon, Goats Cheese, Walnut & Pumpkin seed Salad

Sonia Cabano, well known TV Cook and food writer, recently called Watermelon The King of Summer.  Growing up on a farm as children, it was the best pudding on a hot  summer’s afternoon, lying in the shade of a huge tree nestled up against one of the twin gables of our farm house, on a leather throw listening to vinyls of some of the greatest singers and orchestras the 1950s and 1960s had to offer.

It was only fairly recently that I realised that this monarch could be made into a fabulous savoury salad.

You’ll need:

1 small red onion, sliced thinly

1 lemon

1 bunch flat leafed parsley

1.5kg watermelon, well chilled

2 rolls Fairview Chevin

1 bunch mint – roughly chopped

handful of toasted pumpkin seeds

100g toasted walnuts

pumpkin seed oil for drizzling

extra virgin olive oil

freshly milled black pepper

Method:

Place the sliced onion in a small bowl and grate over the zest of the lemon and squeeze over the juice. Cut the watermelon, use the heart if possible, and cut it into thin slices.  Lay a bed of the flat leafed parsley on plate and place the watermelon slices on top.  Crumble over the goat’s cheese, sprinkle over the mint, the toasted pumpkin seeds, the walnuts, the sliced onion, and drizzle over the pumpkin seed oil.  Drizzle over a stream of olive oil and add a few grinds of black pepper.

Serves 6-8

And the perfect wine to go with it is Christophe Durand’s Vins d’Orrance Kama Chenin Blanc 2010.  Layere os sweet spice, gentle oak flavours from 3rd fill barrels and a long finish.  Made in honor of his wife, Sabrina.

Vins d'Orrance Kama Chenin Blanc 2010

I usually drive out to Bellville at crack of dawn on a delivery Saturday to fetch the meat.

Lorraine & Guillau squinting in the morning sun

In France this type of lamb is also regarded as a great delicacy and justly so for its rich, slightly salty flavour.  In the Legend of Mont St. Michel, Guy du Maupassant describes a meal prepared by St Michael for Satan, during which some pré-salé lamb “as tender as cake” was served.

Pré-salé – pre-salted – lamb that feeds on the salty marsh grass of the Bay of Mont-St.-Michel has put the town on the roster of France’s 100 sites remarquables du goût – places with a unique local speciality.

This dish is perfect in the middle of summer when the lamb was fat on early summer pastures and the garlic is fresh and still green.

It is not easy to find fresh garlic here, use it if you are lucky enough to find it.  If not, use heads of garlic and carefully remove as much of the papery outer covering without disturbing the head.  If you like, you can cut off the tops of the cloves to expose them to the sauce.  They will become rich and sweet during the long slow cooking.

You’ll need:

2 shoulders of lamb

sea salt and freshly milled black pepper

4 Tbs olive oil

2 Tbs butter

2 heads of very fresh garlic, trimmed but with green shoots left on

6 – 8 sprigs fresh thyme

24 shallots or pickling onions – peeled and left whole, especially have the root still attached, as it will hold the whole onion together

600ml full-bodied red wine

250ml NoMU Lamb Fond

1 Tbs dried herbs – I use ‘Italian herbs’ or Herbes de Provence

Method: Preset the oven at 220C.  Place the lamb on a board and lightly stab or score the fat all over.  Season the joints with the salt and pepper and massage the seasoning in.  In a lidded shallow oven proof casserole or oval roasting tin heat the oil and add the butter.  Over medium heat, brown on the fat side, then turn fat side up and brown on the underside.  Tuck in the garlic, thyme and the shallots or pickling onions.  Pour in the wine and the water, sprinkle with the herbs and bring the liquid to the bubble.  Put in a 220C oven, uncovered and roast for 30 minutes.  Then turn down the oven to 150C, cover the lamb with foil and braise for 2 to 2½ hours, or until so tender that the meat will fork easily from the bone.  Now, if you have the time, allow it to stand overnight and next day, remove all the fat from the surrounding sauce.  Reheat carefully in a 180C oven.  Or simply spoon the excess fat off the top, reduce the sauce, season well and thicken with buerre manié – equal quantities of butter and flour kneaded together.

You just have to serve this with creamy mashed potatoes, some crisp bread and a green salad.

Serves 8 generously.

We are great believers in using quality wine in cooking.  As this is a rustic dish, we chose Diemersdal Grenache 2011 as it was our wine of choice to drink with it.  Thys Louw, winemaker f this well known and much lauded Durbanville Wine Estate is a master at Sauvignon Blanc, so do look out for one if his, either under the Diemersdal label, or Sir Lambert, or Sauvignon.com.

]]> http://michaelolivier.co.za/2012/01/01/lamb-shoulders-williston/feed/ 0 http://michaelolivier.co.za/2011/12/28/beach-bag-books-for-new-year/ http://michaelolivier.co.za/2011/12/28/beach-bag-books-for-new-year/#comments Wed, 28 Dec 2011 12:03:10 +0000 Michael Olivier http://michaelolivier.co.za/?p=2959 I have gathered up some books for your beach bag this festive season.  Some easy and amusing reads to while away the hours.  I also suggest a suitable wine to go with each.

A pair from the Penguin African Writers series.

Dangerous Love - Ben Okri

Penguin Books recently launched an African Writers series.  I was very pleased to read a Ben Okri novel, Dangerous Love.  Okri is a Nigerian writer of major international repute.  His use of language is brilliant and though slow moving, perhaps this is an African thing, the leisurely pace of life, it is a fascinating picture of the life and times of Omovo, and office worker and artist.  Okri is able to conjure up the most complete of pictures in one’s mind of Omovo’s life in the compound with his father and step mother, and his ill fated love affair with the beautiful Ifeyiwa.

ISBN 9780143528265
Penguin Books

A Question of Power - Bessie Head

A Question of Power is by Bessie Head, born in Pietermartizburg, lived in Botswana where she was long considered as that country’s best writer.  She died very young in 1973, just as she was reaching international recognition as a writer.  In this semi-autobiogrphical novel, Head describes the life of Elizabeth and her son, refugees from South Africa like Head herself.  Finding that you can’t leave the past at the border, and in your new homeland, as a person of mixed race and with urban ways, she is marked as an outsider.  An excellent read from this award-winning writer.

ISBN 9780143528487
Penguin Books

Barista Pinotage 2010

Barista Pinotage 2010

An African wine for African Books.  Bertus Fourie’s invention, he who knows how to make Pinotage with these overt coffee flavours.  Hugely successful with the people rather than the sniff- and spitterati, this wine is great slightly chilled, sappy fruity stuff.

Ben Trovato – The Whipping Boy

The Whipping Boy - Ben Trovato

Anyone who reads the fictitious Ben Trovato’s column in the Sunday Times would love to have this amusing reminder of columns past. However, should one wish to use The Whipping Boy for nothing more than the simple pursuit of reading pleasure, one will be pleasantly surprised to discover that the book contains more than just a compilation of Trovato’s much-loved and widely hated columns.  Scattered among these literary vipers, like shrapnel from fragmentation grenades, are a bunch of fake news stories, hilarious letters to the rich and famous and outrageous job applications that resulted in the author receiving not a single offer of employment.

ISBN 9780143528272
Penguin Books

Creation Merlot 2010

Creation Merlot 2011

From the upper reaches of the Heel en Aarde Valley comes this elegant sappy fruited Merlot. The Martins and the Kasers are an enthusiastic foursome but I don’t think would offer the politically incorrect Trovato a job.  The wine will certainly provide way more entertainment than the book.

Mind the Gap – Graeme Codrington & Sue Grant-Marshal

Mind the Gap

Amusingly subtitled, Own your Past, Know your Generation and Choose your future, this book takes a look at the way people think they understand children because they were children once.  Here you will find out about your generation and those of the people who make up your world.  Once you begin to understand them, and what makes them and you ‘tick’, the generation gap will shrink.  So fasten your seatbelt for the roller coaster ride which will change your thinking forever.  Excellent, amusing and informative.

ISBN 9780143528418
Penguin Books

Swartland Winery Bushvine Pinotage 2010

Swartland Winery - Bushvine Pinotage 2010

Ruby heart with garnet flashing round the edges.  Bloodplums and black cherries wrapped in fresh spices and a swirl of smoke on the nose.  Berries and cherries follow through on the palate with firm food friendly tannins and spices on the aftertaste.

Celebrate – Tina Bester

Celebrate - Tina Bester

Jenny Crwys Williams of Radio 702 describes this as ‘simply the prettiest cookbook on the block.’  Pretty it might be – and with Craig Fraser’s sublime photography, Vivky Sleet’s words and Libby Doyles magical design, one would expect it to be.  BUT if you want to celebrate – even if it is just four of you, this is a must have book.  I can see your copy, like mine, getting covered in Macaron filling, smears of Chicken Liver Paté, slops of MCC and chocolatey drops of Duck Sauce.  It’s a cant do withouter.

ISBN 9780986981346
Quivertree Publications

Krone Borealis 1997

Krone Borealis 1997

With what else one Celebrate other than the pop of a cork off a good local bubbly.  And this is a serious one.  The Krone Borealis Vintage 1977 showing all the wonders of age, rich biscuity nutty and fruity whiffs, deep citrus and mineral flavours.  You’ll want to drink this while planning your celebration – and during it.  And after!

Come Again – Andrew Donaldson & Mandy Rossouw

Come Again

Andrew Donaldson has been a journalist with the Sunday Times for many years.  I so enjoy his weekly column.  Mandy Rossouw is the international correspondent for Media 24 newspapers.  Together they have put together this wonderful little snapshot of South Africa.  The who and what that made you laugh or cry – or pull your hair out in frustration.  If you are a news junkie [Julius Who?]  or want a great giggle, this is for you.  Or certainly a gift you should be buying for Christmas for your news junkie friends.

Rustenburg Roussane 2011

Rustenberg Roussane 2011

You want something extraordinary to drink with this book and this wine fits the bill.  A delicious Mediterranean grape, making a sublime wine from one of the Cape’s First Growth Estates.  Delicious creamy stuff, smelling of white flowers, tasting of white fleshed peaches with vanilla cream.  Stonker!

Happy New Year, peace, health, success and prosperity be with you during 2012!

The View from Durbanville to the Simonsberg

Madeleine and I wish you a very merry and much blessed Christmas.  May 2012 bring you all and more that you wish for yourselves.

The approach of the Christmases of my childhood was like a slow choreographed dance that took place from the time the schools closed for the annual summer holiday.  Each set piece of the dance had a huge impact on my senses.  I look back with nostalgia but use the moments of magic to buoy me up with a warm and fuzzy feeling inside.

In the vineyards on the farm on which I grew up, Dagbreek in Durbanville, the buds had set fruit and there were tiny little bunches of green grapes the size of pellet gun shot.  The grass growing in between the rows of vines had died and become a brittle brown mass and the heat of summer had set in.  We had to be careful walking through the vineyards for fear of the beautiful cobras and often came across tortoises resting in the shade under a vine and huge flocks of guinea fowl making their strange ricky ticky ticky ticky sounds.

In the winery – very artisanal compared to the stainless steel & polymer of today – things were being gussied up for the harvest which started early in the new year. Concrete tanks were scraped down inside to remove tartrate deposits and were scrubbed clean.  Perished hosepipes, all made of rubber then, were thrown away and replaced with bright new red ones with shiny brass fittings.  Coco pans, pulled by the horses into the vineyards to collect the grapes were serviced, and old tyres were used to make new brake shoes for the new vintage.

The heat.  At times waking up in the morning, the heat was unbearable.  We’d leave our bedroom doors and windows open hoping for cooling breezes that used to whisper over the vineyards from the Atlantic Ocean that we could see in the distance.  Oftentimes the front door would be left open too.  Always the back door.  In fact, I don’t recall the back door even having a key.  Anyway the dogs slept in the kitchen, so they needed to go in and out.  The heat seemed to hang silently, oppressively in the Norfolk Island Pines and Pittosporums that surrounded the farmhouse and the sun glare off the gables was almost blinding.  Birds sat open mouthed – there is a wonderful Afrikaans saying ‘dis so warm, die kraaie gaap’ and the dogs lay spread out on the back stoep in the shade.  Only the cackling wing-flapping Cape Weavers carried on their frenzied nest building activities.

Christmas was a time when the ‘Christmas Beetles’ or cicadas made their scything-screaming almost unbearably high-pitched sound in the trees outside.  I would wake up to it in the morning.  The sound would stop sometimes and for a short while, the silence would be deafening.

Ingredients for the Christmas Puddings, photographed for me by Sam Linsell

When I was a really little boy [in the 1950’s since you ask] my Scottish ancestored grandmother carried out the McPherson family tradition of making the black fruity Christmas Puddings in late November on Stir up Sunday, in the Christian Calendar known as the ‘Sunday last before Advent.’  This was usually done in the morning and just before they were steamed for the whole afternoon, each member of the family was made to stir in some silver tickeys, sixpenny bits, and little silver charms, stirred in one by one, each with a wish.  If you stirred clockwise, your successor stirred anti-clockwise. They are replaced now with one and two rand coins! I remember climbing up onto a chair to do it as a small boy.  I think the only thing my grandfather stirred into it was a generous slug of Bells Whisky, helping himself to a large noonday pre-prandial tot at the same time.

In the kitchen things were busy – really busy.  The kitchen was always overly warm in summer as the Aga stove was still riddled and filled up with anthracite twice daily by Dawid, our asthmatic old retainer, whom my mother kept going with digitalis for his weak heart and a regime of coloured aspirins for his various other ailments.  So the south facing kitchen windows with their fly screens stood open all summer too.

Christmas Cake before icing - ours for this Christmas

All the time the kitchen had that wonderful dusty, floury smell as shortbreads, mince pies, the daily bread and other wondrous things were baked.  Almonds were skinned and ground to make marzipan to cover the Christmas cake, which had been baked on Stir up Sunday and was stored in a muslin cloth which was opened regularly in order that some KWV five year old brandy could be poured over it.  Once covered in marzipan and stiff royal icing, which set like a rock, the cake was usually decorated with a little Santa sled drawn by reindeers and Rudolf with his red nose.

Though the Christmas puddings were made in November, there was always a flurry of late invitations for Christmas lunch when it became obvious that various friends would be alone at Christmas.  This at times necessitated last minute puddings being made when Aunt Muriel’s recipe would be used.

Mince pies were made with short pastry; lard was used to make it really crumbly.  And they were folded-over circles of pastry so that the mince pies were half-moon shaped and when cooled were doused thickly with icing sugar.

Early in the December holidays we were kitted out in our choirboy outfits for the Christmas Carol Service.  We would be taken down the avenue of gum trees into the village of Durbanville to the little Anglican Church of All Saints and into the vestry where the red cassocks and white lace-edged surplices smelling of mothballs awaited us for fitting, one size up from last year.  They would be taken home, mended where needed, laundered and the ruffles round the neck fixed with Robin Starch and ironed like circular concertinas.  And then the rehearsals would begin.  Round the piano in the upstairs sitting room two nights a week we would gather and sing.  And what a mixed crew we were.  Girls from the local reform school, known as The Girls Institute in their uniforms and berets, happy to be let out for the night and to grab a quick puff in the garden, ladies whose chins wobbled as they sang like elderly matrons eating marshmallows with no teeth, some of my fathers boozy friends who had sung tenor in their school choir and now sang bass and an aunt who had the voice of an angel who could sing descant versions of all the carols.  One of the bonuses was the tea served afterwards with its shortbread and koeksusters with mince pies putting in a brief appearance at the final rehearsal.  I still get emotional hearing those traditional Christmas Carols.

Mid Summer perfection painted by my friend Pam Hirschson

Another ritual was the preparing of the front stoep for Christmas and putting up the tree.  All the wooden furniture was carried down onto the lawn, cushion covers removed and laundered, cushions beaten to within an inch of their lives to remove dust, springs brushed clean of any rust and the rich oak and mahogany chairs and couches painted with linseed oil.  The floor was washed down with hot soapy water and red Cobra Stoep Polish was applied and then allowed to dry before being buffed up by the farm workers with large strapped brushes and sheepskin squares for the extra shine, they wore squares of sheepskin covered car tyres on their knees.  The smell of the polish seemed to hang around for days and grew in strength as the morning sun heated its gleaming redness.  And the cricket batty smell of the linseed oil was always present on Christmas morning at present opening time.  A huge Christmas tree was cut from the proliferation of pines on the lands and erected in a large bucket filled with stones and sand in the corner and we had the fun of covering the bucket with crinkly paper decorating the tree with streamers and tinsel and delicately blown glass balls.

On Christmas morning the kitchen was a hive of activity. While we never had turkey or goose, the wheezy Muscovy ducks that used to suck and blow in the mud round the dripping taps in the back yard were called to higher service, with some plump young hens and a couple of thyme scented legs of lamb landed up in the large roasting dishes in the Aga oven with large crisp floury potatoes, half onions, parsnips and turnips sizzling to crispness in the fat around them.  The air was fragrant with mint that was chopped and heated with vinegar and apple jelly to serve with the lamb.  With beef bones bubbling in a stock pot to make gravy.  With egg custard and vanilla for the sherry trifle and steaming Christmas puddings and overbrandied butter.  White fleshed peaches from the kitchen garden poached in syrup and late season strawberries were hulled.  Back then there was only a short three-month strawberry season from mid-September.

Apart from the sumptuous food, Christmas lunch was made up of crackers and those awful hats whose colour ran on the brows of our sweaty uncles and gently perspiring aunts.  There was fun and laughter, loving grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins and feasting.

And how well I remember lying satiated under the trees on leather rugs and plump cushions after Christmas lunch, dogs gnawing on the discarded lamb roast bones, listening to the Lessons and Carols from Kings College Cambridge while we built up an appetite for the mince pies, shortbread and Christmas fruit cake that came with afternoon tea.

I recently  spent a happy weekend in Prince Albert at the African Relish Cookery School.  My wife and I had gone there to work with Sonia Cabano who was launching aptly named Relish, a book without which you should not be in the kitchen. I did some  wine workshops and introduced the guests to some new and different wines.

It was huge fun, the weather was sublime, and what really enchanted me was the wonderful flowers which were blooming at the school and in the village.

So this piece is more about the flowers than anything else.

I was so happy to see a Cup of Gold again.  We had a creeper which grew all over one part of the farm house in which I grew up and it has been years since I last saw one in bloom.

In the main street, I came across this profusion of white Iceberg Roses.

A bit further down the road, outside William and Colleen Penfold’s The Prince Albert Trading Store, their Basset was taking an early morning nap.  He was in a coma.

The garden of African Relish has some wonderful roses in it,
some old English blooms as well as variegated ones.

In the herbaceous border of the herb garden at African Relish, I came across these Johnny Jump Ups – the cutest multi-coloured pansies.  My grandmother used to use them in her garden and they self seeded each year, hence the name!

Sage and mint enjoy the sun in the herb garden.

Right outside the main demonstration kitchen was this Loquat tree, just bursting with fruit.  Another childhood memory for me as my father had planted a row of trees in front of the wine cellar on our farm to keep the cellar cool in summer.  As a result, there were always lots of loquats for us to eat as children in the Spring.

There is a diary of the weekend, filled with more information in my online digital magazine Crush!  Crush! is a finalist in this years global Digital Magazine Awards.

For a more detailed account of my Prince Albert Weekend, Click here

My cake, Granny's recipe

Stir up Sunday, which this week fell on November 20th, a date in the Christian calendar known as the Sunday last before advent, is traditionally the day on which Christmas Puddings are stirred up and Christmas cakes are baked.

It’s not too late to start now and still have a great cake for Christmas.

If you want to read my story about Stir up Sunday, you’ll find it in the latest edition of Crush – click here.

This cake is based on a recipe my grandmother used for the entirety of my childhood.  The brandy was very important as the cake was fed on it in the weeks leading up to Christmas.

I made this cake on my cooking slot on the Expresso TV Breakfast Show on December 1st.  Each week I am going to feed it with brandy and it will be given away to a viewer just before Christmas.  watch me on Tuesdays and Thursdays on SATV 3 just about 07h15.

For this cake you’ll need:

100g Orange River currants

150g Orange River raisins

250g Orange River sultanas

100g glacé pineapple or melon, roughly chopped

100g glacé cherries, rinsed of syrup and cut in half

100g candied mixed peel

125ml KWV Brandy, plus more for the weekly soak

130g plain flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp each ground ginger, cloves, nutmeg, sea salt and black pepper

50g ground almonds

125g butter, softened

125g soft brown sugar, or muscovado sugar

4 eggs, whisked

Grated rind of 1 lemon and 1 orange

100g whole almonds

3 Tbs preserved ginger, rinsed of syrup and finely chopped

Method:

One of the things my grandmother believed in was soaking the fruit in the brandy at least overnight.  So place the currants, raisins, sultanas, pineapple, cherries and peel in a bowl and pour over the brandy. Cover with clingwrap and leave overnight – she used a saucer!  Place the butter and the sugar on a shelf in the kitchen so that they are at room temperature in the morning.  The cake tin – a 20cm springform – was lined with a double layer of greaseproof paper, well brushed with butter and sprinkled with flour, [we use silicone paper now!] was also prepared the night before.

In the morning, preheat the oven to 140C.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, the salt and spices and the ground almonds.

In an electric beater, cream together the butter and sugar at slow speed and then beat until light and fluffy.  Add the eggs, about one at a time adding a little of the flour mixture each time to prevent curdling.  Fold the flour into the butter cream and add the fruits, any remaining brandy, the lemon and orange rinds, half the whole almonds and the preserved ginger.

Spoon the mixture carefully into the prepared cake tin, smoothing over the surface, and creating a slight hollow in the middle to prevent a hump in the middle.  Make a pattern on the top of the cake with the remaining whole almonds, much like I have done in the picture.

Place the cake into the preset oven and bake for 60 minutes.  Cover with a sheet of aluminium foil and bake for a further 30 minutes.  Check with a skewer in the middle of the cake.  If it comes out clean, the cake is cooked.  If not, test every 10 minutes until the cake is cooked.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the tin.  Poke some holes in the cake with a skewer, pour over a little brandy, cover in muslin, wrap in foil or clingwrap and store in a cake tin.  Once a week take the cake out and pour a little brandy over it.

Ice the cake the day before Christmas.  The almond pattern is so pretty, you can leave it without icing, perhaps just brush some warm apricot jam over the top.

Glen Carlou Cellar & Restaurant

When the Swiss-based Hess Family Estates entered the wine industry in 1978, its mission was clear: to focus on the production of premium quality wines. Today, Hess Family Estates owns six New World cellars and vineyards: the Hess Collection and Artezin Wines in Napa, California; Sequana Wines in Russian River, California; Bodega Colomé in Argentina, as well as the major share in Peter Lehmann Wines, Australia and Glen Carlou Vineyards in the Paarl region of South Africa.

On a fairy tale weekend recently, Madeleine and I lunched at Glen Carlou Winery in Paarl.  I had eaten there several times before, but it was her first time there.  I have eaten some truly sublime dishes in the restaurant at Glen Carlou prepared by Chef Hennie van der Merwe and his team.  Hennie formerly owned a restaurant and had experience at the well-known Cellars-Hohenhort Hotel in Constantia and on board the magnificent cruise liners, the QE2 & QM2.  The menu contains some of Hennie’s more international dishes, but has some dishes which doff their caps at Cape Cuisine.  There is a children’s menu available.  The dessert choices will cause decision problems!  A cheese platter is available for those who wish to finish their wine at the end of the meal.  Apart from the wines produced on the Estate, wines from the other Estates owned by the Hess Family are also available which adds to the fun of the meal.  The view over Paarl Rock and the mountains in the distance has to go down as one of the best restaurant views in the Cape.

Dishes to look out for on Hennie’s current menu are, as a first course, the Mixed exotic mushrooms, buffalo mozzarella and fried quail eggs, suggested wine: Glen Carlou 2010 Chardonnay.  An excellent starter too is the Salad of Buffalo mozzarella, tomato, basil and balsamic onions, suggested wine: Glen Carlou 2010 Tortoise Hill white.

As a main course don’t go any further than the most delicious Slow Braised Pork belly with sweet coconut rice, baby turnip, crackling and soy reduction, suggested wine: Glen Carlou 2007 Syrah,  This is definitely the best pork crackling you will ever have!

Hennie has recently put in a new menu, so the dishes will have changes.  But do try Arco’s brand spanking new release, Glen Carlou Unwooded Chardonnay 2011.

The great treat of course at Glen Carlou is the wines of Arco Laarman who has been in the cellar on the Estate since 2000.  His wines have such depth and character.  Every bottle of Glen Carlou I have ever opened is totally sublime.  He makes delicious deep dark reds and characterful whites, both wooded and unwooded.  You just have to put a case or two in your boot before you leave.  And if you  can land a bottle of Peter Lehmann Riesling from Australia, jump at the opportunity, it’s a fabulous Riesling.

One of the special things you can do is to walk through the Hess Art Collection Museum.  Donald Hess began collecting art as a young man, following his intuition in the realm of art just as he did in the realm of business.  Initially comprising modern and contemporary works from European and US artists, the collection is now international in scope. Donald Hess has been recognized as one of the top two hundred art collectors in ARTnews magazine over the last two decades.   Hess initiated public access to his collection with the 1989 opening of The Hess Collection Winery in Napa Valley. The art museum there is housed in the original winery built in 1903. Hess Art Collection museums now include one at Bodega Colomé in Argentina and since 2006 one at Glen Carlou.

“With its magnificent scenery, wonderful soil and climate and world-class wines, taking my interest in wine to South Africa by obtaining Glen Carlou has always been an ambition I have been fortunate enough to fulfill,” Donald Hess says.  “It is thus a pleasure to see the current offerings at the winery extended to a venue displaying some of the art works I love.  The collection will change regularly and I hope that South African and international visitors to Glen Carlou will take as much pleasure in the art works on display as they do in the wines.”

Hennie van der Merwe Chef & Arco Laarman Winemaker

La Motte Curries and Chris Erasmus, Chef

One of the great traditions in the Cape, is pickled fish.

And in the early days of the Cape, it is speculated by Dr Hettie Classen in her book, Die Geskiedenis van Boerekos, that it was the Dutch who brought the spices to the Cape when they first arrived here in 1652.  They had for years before been buying spices from the East through Italian traders who in turn brought them from Eastern traders who had brought the spices in camel trains along the well known trading routes, the Silk route being one of them.

Exciting things are happening in Franschhoek on La Motte Wine Estate where Hetta van Deventer, Director of Cuisine and Executive Chef Chris Erasmus are making a study of early Cape foods and recipes – and serving them up to lucky guests in the restaurant on the estate.

I have been playing around with their curry powders, they have them for beef, chicken and fish and changed my old recipe to use their fish curry powder.

Few Cape homes would not have their own recipe for “kerrievis” as pickling was a popular way of preserving fish in the days before refrigerators.  Often served as a first course, pickled fish is served as a main course with a salad of potato and accompanied by some dressed lettuce leaves.

Here is my family recipe:

You’ll need:
2kg fillet of fish, all bones removed and cut into squares of about 6cm
seasoned flour
125ml sunflower, peanut or canola oil

Pickle:
4 large onions, peeled, cut in half and then into thick slices
70ml sunflower, peanut or canola oil
3 Tbs  La Motte or aromatic mild fish curry powder
1 tsp turmeric
1 tsp paprika
1 tsp ground coriander
1 Tbs whole allspice
125g natural sugar
1 Tbs peeled and finely chopped fresh ginger or galangal root
1 Tbs finely chopped chilis, seeds and veins removed
3 bay leaves cut in strips with scissors
2 tsp sea salt
freshly milled black pepper
500ml white wine vinegar
250ml water
3 fresh bay or lemon leaves

METHOD:

1. Cook the fish two days ahead of requiring the dish.  Pat the fish dry and dip into the seasoned flour.  Fry in the hot oil for about 4 minutes on each side or until golden brown and cooked through.  As the fillets are cooked, remove and drain on kitchen towels and allow to cool.  If desired, the fish can be brushed with oil and baked for about 25 minutes in an oven heated to 180C.
2. Prepare the pickle.  Fry the onions gently in the vegetable oil until they are transparent but have not lost their crunch.  Add the curry powder, turmeric, paprika and coriander.  Fry over gentle heat for a short while to release the aromatic oils from the spices.  Add the remaining ingredients [except vinegar, water and fresh bay or lemon leaves] and cook gently for 2 minutes.  Pour over the vinegar and water gently to prevent splashing.  Over high heat bring to the boil, turn down the heat and simmer the pickle for ten minutes.
3. Construct the dish by pouring a bit of the pickle into a glass or china dish.  Place a single layer of the fish on top and cover that with pickle.  Build up layers of fish and pickle ending with a layer of pickle on top.  Place the fresh bay or lemon leaves on top.  Cover loosely and allow to cool completely.  When cold, cover with clingwrap and refrigerate for two days.
4. Serve the pickled fish with the marinated onions and a little bit of the sauce.

Serves 6 as a main course or 10 as a first course

It goes without saying that you should be drinking a glass of La Motte Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay with this wine, but the reds, if slightly chilled offer an interesting taste combination experience.

She loved Ginger Liqueur too and was not averse to a glass after dinner.  At times she would mix it with swirls of lemon peel, ginger ale and ice and call it a Horse’s neck with a kick.  I later discovered that this was a genuine American cocktail.

So here, as a tribute to her, a gorgeous ginger dessert

Recipe:
Vanilla Meringues with ginger preserves

To make the meringues:

You’ll need : 6 egg whites, pinch cream of tartar, 300g castor sugar, splash of Champagne Vinegar [or mild white wine vinegar], 1 vanilla pod, 30g corn flour.

Method : Preset the oven at 120C. Whisk the egg whites in an electric beater till they form soft peaks. Add the sugar, vinegar, the seeds from the vanilla pod and the corn flour and mix for a further minute. Spoon four large egg shapes onto non stick baking.  Bake in the preset oven for about 40 minutes until the outside is crispy and the centre is still soft. Leave to cool completely.  When cool these can be stored for a short while – a day or so – in an air tight container.

Makes 4

You will need two meringues per serving.

For Vanilla and Ginger Meringues, which I made on the Expresso Breakfast TV Show, you will need Vanilla Ice Cream and Oudemeester Ginger Liqueur.

Vanilla Meringues with Ginger
You’ll need: preserved Ginger – cut into strips, Oudemeester Ginger Liqueur and crumbs of vanilla wafer biscuits, fresh mint for garnish.

Place two balls of vanilla ice cream on a plate and wedge a vanilla meringue on either side.  Place strips of ginger preserve on the ice cream and drizzle over a little syrup from the ginger jar and the liqueur.  Garnish with mint and strew some of the vanilla wafer crumbs on the plate.

That should do the trick!