Michael
Olivier, London trained chef, top restaurateur and well known food
and wine writer, is an ardent lover of good cooking and fine wines.
Michael joins us on SHOWCOOK in time for our winter season, regaling
us with his thoughts on richly delicious dishes paired with some of
the intriguing wines of the Cape, South Africa's premier wine region.
With the onset of autumn and the first rains and dusting of
snow on the mountains of the Boland, I start eyeing my blue tartan mohair
blanket with something a little more than admiration as I realise that
soon I will be needing to pull it up over the duvet every evening.
Cool weather also brings about a change in the way I think about food.
I lunched with Franck Dangereux of La Colombe on Constantia Uitsig wine
estate recently. He had just returned from Sweden where he had picked up
his prize at the Gourmand Book Awards for the Best Chef Cookbook for his
wonderful Feast.
On his return his thoughts were on his winter menu and the comfort
foods of his childhood. Those he ate in his grandmother’s home. So
we tasted our way through some pretty exciting dishes, with the really
yummy Constantia Uitsig Wines, the most comforting of which for me was a
bourride of kingklip. A large spoonful of aioli – redolent of roasted
garlic and olive oil a piece of oven roasted kingklip on top and a
delicious soupy fish sauce spotted with peas poured over it, matched to
perfection by the Constantia Blanc, a blend of mainly Semillon and
Sauvignon Blanc. There’s coq au vin and daube de boeuf on his menu both
of which will be perfection with the Constantia – a cabernet sauvignon,
merlot blend with a splash of cabernet franc giving it a lovely
earthiness.
On our menu
Chez Olivier - will include one of my favourite beef
dishes, Carbonnade of Beef. Carbonnade is a rustic dish of Belgian origin.
We make this with little fuss using good quality topside of beef and easy
to serve accompaniments like really creamy mashed potatoes and lightly
steamed cabbage with lots of freshly milled black pepper and nutmeg and
butter! For the beer I prefer to use a light beer like a lager rather than
a heavy beer like Guinness. If you like you can pop some pitted prunes in
towards the end.
CARBONNADE OF BEEF
You'll need: 1kg topside of beef,
seasoned flour, Kloovenburg olive oil, unsalted butter, 1kg onions -
peeled & thinly sliced, 3 fat cloves garlic - finely chopped, 1 tsp
brown sugar, 4 little branches of fresh thyme, 1 litre lager, 1 tsp smooth
French mustard and a squeeze of lemon. Serves six.
Method: Preset the oven at 180°C.
Have ready a cast iron casserole with tight fitting lid. Slice the beef
into slices about 10cm square and about 1cm thick. Dip them into the
seasoned flour and give them a good shake to remove any excess. Heat a
tablespoon each of oil and unsalted butter in the casserole. When the oil
is sufficiently hot, brown the meat - not too many pieces at a time - for
about 2 minutes on either side. Keep the cooked pieces on a plate while
you brown all the meat. Use the juices, which run off it, in the dish.
Now
without wiping out the casserole, add more oil and butter and brown the
onion and garlic over a medium heat, turning all the while until browned.
Add the brown sugar and cook a couple of minutes longer before adding the
branches of thyme and the beer. Gently bring it to the boil and add the
beef and its juices placing the meat in well amongst the onions. Pop the
lid on and bake in a 180C oven for just short of an hour. Remove the lid
and stir in the mustard and lemon juice. Cook for a couple of minutes on
top and reseason if necessary.
Wine suggestions:
Grangehurst Cabernet Sauvignon 1999, serious, rich
fruit, dark plums and sweet-baked blackcurrants with delicious grippy
tannins which just make you want more. Kloovenburg, whose olive oil we use
recently won an international prize for its "fruttato intenso",
also won over Decanter Magazine in January of this year in its tasting of
South African Shiraz when it was given 5 stars leaving other better known
locals in the dust. The 2002 Kloovenburg Shiraz is so elegant and
restrained, yet showing all the spice, freshly ground pepper and fine
Italian leather and hedge brambleberries one expects of a fine Shiraz.
Another wintry
suggestion is....
DUCK LEGS IN RED
WINE WITH APRICOTS
Duck legs lend themselves to long slow cooking, so we usually take off
the breast to cook them separately and save the legs for some slow food!
Fruit goes well with duck and the sourness of the apricots counterbalances
the richness of the duck.
You’ll need: 6 large whole duck legs, 2 whole heads of garlic, cloves
separated and peeled, 75ml brandy, 125ml full bodied dry red wine [use a
good fully flavoured one], 8 fresh thyme sprigs, 12 soft eating dried
apricots, 1250ml hot chicken stock - home made if possible, though Ina
Paarmans is good, sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. Serves 6
Method:
Preset the oven at 180°C. Trim the excess fat off the duck
legs and render it down in a heavy saucepan able to hold the legs. Season
the duck with sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. Brown the legs,
skin sides first over medium heat for 15 minutes until the skin is crisp.
Spoon out any excess fat as you go along. Cook the legs on the other side
for about 5 minutes over lower heat. Set the duck legs aside while you
swirl the garlic cloves through the fat to brown the outsides.
Remove and place on the plate with the duck legs. Pour out any remaining
duck fat taking care not to throw out any of the accumulated duck juices
or crispy bits.
Return to the heat and pour in the brandy, flame and pour
in the red wine scraping all the browned and crisp bits into the sauce.
Reduce the wine; add the garlic, thyme and half the apricots. Place the
duck legs, skin side up on top. Pour the stock round, cover with a lid and
braise in the oven for 2 hours or until the meat is almost falling off the
bones. Remove the duck and keep warm while preparing the sauce. Scoop as
much fat of the top as you can, bring to the boil and reduce by 30%. Add
the remaining apricots and simmer for about 5 minutes to soften the fruit.
Taste the sauce and reseason to taste with the sea salt and freshly ground
black pepper. Add a touch of Vedrenne Supercassis should the apricots be
too sour.
Serve the duck legs with wide ribbon noodles or squashed fluffy
potatoes.
Wine suggestions:
Morgenhof Estate in Stellenbosch provides the perfect
foil for this dish with its subtly perfumed Pinotage. Elegant, plump,
sappy fruit though deliciously dry on the finish. This is a rustic dish
and the reasonably priced Morgenhof Vineyards Red with its dusty mulberry;
morello cherry palate would match it as well for a family occasion on a
weeknight. Another one of my current favourite Pinotages is the Westbridge
Pinotage from Julian [grape growing father] and Ian [young winemaker son]
Starke in Muldersvlei. Delicious little clouds of tropical fruit about the
nose, earthy forest floor flavours, soft and round and oh-so-easy to
drink.
PESTO MINI LOAF
In the restaurant on Voyager Estate in Margaret River where I consult,
these little mini loaves are served. Perhaps they enticed the judges at
the end of last year into awarding the restaurant the American Express
Golden Plate for the Best Restaurant in a Winery. This is a great way to
start a meal – hot little loaves topped with pesto and grated Parmesan
cheese. Perfect to dip into olive oil and balsamic vinegar and enjoy with
a glass of wine while waiting for the rest of the meal to appear.
You’ll need:
For the bread - 1kg flour, 20g salt, 15g sugar, 20g
instant dried yeast, 600ml warm water, 600ml sunflower oil. For the
topping – 1 egg, 1 Tbs basil pesto, finely grated Parmesan cheese.
Makes 12 mini loaves.
Method: Sift the flour and the salt into a mixing bowl, add the sugar
and yeast. Slowly add the water and oil mixture and knead to a soft dough,
knead lightly for about 8 minutes to release the gluten from the flour.
Set aside in a lightly greased bowl covered with a tea towel and allow the
dough to rise and double in size. Punch down and divide into 12 portions.
Roll into balls and place in greased muffin tins or onto a greased baking
tray. Snip the tops twice with a pair of scissors and allow to rise again.
Set the oven at 180°C. Brush the tops with the egg and pesto wash and
sprinkle lightly with finely grated Parmesan cheese. Bake for 10 – 15
minutes. Allow to cool slightly and serve with some salt flakes, extra
virgin olive oil and balsamic vinegar.
Wine suggestions:
Having recently tasted the stately Slaley Chardonnay
with these little loaves it would be perfect if you are looking for an
elegant fully flavoured mouthful of cling peaches and buttery citrus with
elegant overtones of vanilla from the French Oak for the start of your
meal. For a bit of fun in the name the Slaley Shatot Planque Rosé is a
seriously delicious rosé. Why don’t we drink more rosé? So yummy when
it’s dry and flavourful like this one.
