Michael
Olivier joins us on Showcook, having just launched his superb new book,
'A Restaurateur Remembers', published by Double Storey Books (to
be reviewed on Showcook shortly). It is late winter and Michael chats about
consuming national symbols.
Desecration
of national symbols is sometimes all too alive when we see television
footage of flags being burnt. Eating
of national symbols Michael maintains is something else.
I am sure that the dried petals of
Protea
Cynaroides, the King Protea would make excellent scoops for sea salt
like I saw razor clam shells being used by Fraser’s Restaurant chef, in
fact heck of a chef, Chris Taylor in Western Australia - and at the time
thought ‘how clever’. No edible dish could be made from this spiky, rather hard,
yet very attractive in an architectural and design way, national flower of
ours.
But what of our national bird, the Blue
Crane, known to us Latin freaks as Grus
Paradisea? I had to turn to C Louis Leipoldt in his Leipoldt’s
Cape Cookery to read that "Herons and cranes are still sometimes
sold by butchers." We must remember he died over 50 years ago;
today’s butchers don’t stretch much beyond chicken and duck and
perhaps the odd guinea fowl. And that "although they need larding and
prolonged stewing", the "blue crane is considered the best; its
flesh is dark, aromatic and delicate…" Guinea Fowl will have to suffice if we are looking for a bird which
is available everywhere.
This
recipe comes from my recently published book, Michael Olivier, a
restaurateur remembers, published by Double Storey.
ROAST
GUINEA FOWL WITH CÈPES RISOTTO
You’ll need:
2 guinea fowl, mirepoix for braising - carrot, onion,
celery & leek, 125ml red wine, 125ml port, 25g dried cèpes [boletus
edulis, 50g fresh cèpes or other mushrooms, pan fried in a little olive
oil, 50g butter, 1 onion – finely chopped, 100g arborio rice, 500ml
guinea fowl stock - or more if required, finely grated parmesan cheese,
25ml port, 35g butter, 10g fresh sage, 20g broad beans, 10g finely chopped
Parma ham, sea salt and freshly milled black pepper.
Method:
Clean the guinea fowl well and carefully remove the legs.
Brown the legs in an ovenproof casserole with lid, using a little
olive oil. Remove and drain. Add a cup of mirepoix of onion, carrot, celery, leek and any other
aromatic vegetables of your choice and sweat them gently. Place the legs on top of the mirepoix and pour over the red wine
and port. Season with sea
salt and freshly milled black pepper. Cover and braise in the oven at
180ºC for up to two hours until very
tender and the meat strips off the bone easily.
Drain off braising liquid and vegetables and set aside.
Remove the meat from the bone and shred, cool and set aside. Carefully remove the breast, trim and set aside.
Roast the guinea fowl carcasses and place in a large stockpot,
cover with water and some chopped onions, carrots, celery, celery leaves
with the leg bones and their braising liquid. Bring to the boil, simmer and then reduce to about 500ml.
Meantime, in a bowl, pour 500ml boiling water over the dried cèpes
and allow to reconstitute. Chop
the cèpes. Keep the soaking water for later use. Make the risotto.
In
a saucepan heat the olive oil and add the butter. Add the onion and sweat gently until soft.
Add the arborio rice and sweat until the rice is transparent and
well heated through. Make the
risotto using as much of the boiling stock as is required. About ¾ of the way through the cooking process add the
cèpes and
their soaking liquid. When the risotto is cooked, stir in 25g butter and the
shredded leg meat. Season
well and add a little finely grated fresh Parmesan cheese.
To prepare the dish.
Brown
the guinea fowl breast on both sides in a small pan. Deglaze with the port and pour round a little guinea fowl stock.
Wet-roast, skin side down, in the oven for about 15 - 20 minutes,
or until just cooked. Remove
from the oven and set the breast aside, keep warm. Reduce the liquid in the pan and add the sage, broad beans and
Parma ham. Season with
freshly ground black pepper and taste for salt. For each serving, place quarter the risotto in a deep dinner
plate, carve the breast in thick slices and place on top, skin side up.
Pour round the ingredients of the pan and garnish with fresh sage.
Serves 4 persons.
Wine
suggestions: Morgenhof Chardonnay is lightly wooded with a silken cream
approach and overtones of ripe white fleshed peaches, a slight apparent
sweetness adds to its allure. Kloovenburg
have just released their Sauvignon Blanc 2005 - it’s a limited edition,
but a classical grassy and asparagus wine to match the green tinged wine.
If you want to go with a schmoozy red, Glen Carlou Pinot Noir is
quite fabulous, dark
ruby of colour, spicy brambly fruit aromas with the flavours of ripe
strawberries and sweet raspberries. David Finlayson has created the
perfect balance between fruit and French Oak and long aftertastes cheering
on the fruit. Elegantly recessive and just made for superb food.
Of the national animal, the Springbok -
Antidorcas marsupialis, I have had many a happy meeting. In fact have stripped down carcasses for meals and biltongy
snacks. Casseroled, marinated, minced and roasted, all appeal hugely if
well prepared and served with a glass or two of great ‘national’ wine
- Pinotagius Capensis [tongue in
cheek joke against myself and all this Latin phraseology!].
Finer examples of Pinotage which have been dealt with by my
corkscrew recently are Ian Starke’s utterly deliciously different 2003
Westbridge Pinotage [WO Stellenbosch] made in his inimitable unique style
with delicious red tropical fruit flavours and aromas of freshly turned
soil after rain, rich and mineral. On
the Paarl side of Klapmuts Kop Mark and Belinda Lindhorst are packing
punch into their Lindhorst Pinotage and have created a densely textured
blockbuster, rustic and full of chewy flavours.
Stuart Bass and Peter Logue of SuperMeat
in Main Road, Kenilworth, my ‘local’ master butchers, have their
windows daubed with takkie white from the next door shoe repairer with
news of the venison they have available each winter. If you are lucky
enough to have a friend who goes hunting, cadge a couple of springbok
fillets and make this salad.
SALAD
OF SPRINGBOK FILLET WITH ROASTED VEGETABLES, APPLES AND HAZELNUTS
You’ll need:
2 springbok fillets, touch of olive oil [my
favourite Kloovenburg Extra Virgin, nice and fruity and come to think of
it the Kloovenburg Cabernet Sauvignon, great berries and tomato bush
smells would go well with this dish too!], freshly milled black pepper,
sea salt and fresh thyme leaves stripped from the sprigs, 2 beetroot, 2
red onions, 1 apple [Pink Lady is brilliant crisp and aromatic], mead,
apple cider or sherry vinegar, saladings of your choice, handful of
chopped roasted hazelnuts.
Method: Preset the oven at 180°C and when hot, roast in it
on a metal tray for about 30 minutes - or a bit longer if necessary, the
beetroot and onions which you have peeled, quartered and rubbed with olive
oil and seasoned with sea salt and freshly milled black pepper. In a thick frying pan over high heat with a touch of olive oil cook
the springbok well rubbed with olive oil, sea salt and freshly milled
black pepper until seared on the outside and then slip into the oven for
about 12 minutes - more or less depending on how rare or well done you
want it. Remove from the oven
and allow to rest for at least 10 minutes, this will finish off the
cooking and allow the juices to settle and not run off when you slice it.
To make the salad, toss the still slightly warm vegetables
with the saladings, apple cut into sticks, nuts, sea salt and freshly
milled black pepper, olive oil and a touch of the vinegar of your choice
and pile onto a platter. Slice
the meat into thickish slices and place randomly on top of the salad and
serve with delicious crunchy bread.
Serves 4 persons.
Wine suggestions:
Peter Finlayson's Bouchard Finlayson
Hannibal is quite the choice for this dish - Italian varietals giving
different and amusing tastes to the conventional. Being Springbok,
you may want to try a Pinotage with it and perhaps Morgenhof Pinotage
would go down well. It's a rich, alive ruby coloured wine with
dominant flavours of raspberries, brambles and cinnamon on the nose. The
palate is soft and seductive in structure with perfect wood integration.
Like seductive, makes you want to sip more!
Few of us get that lucky that we are
able to taste Dichistius Capensis, our national fish - known as the
Galjoen. National fish because it is found along our coasts from the
Orange River mouth to northern KwaZulu-Natal. It is a robust fish as one
would expect from a South African, coarse fleshed which is marbled by
black veins and quite fat. So it’s great over coals of an aromatic wood
fire, old vines are best. As their diet consists mainly of small crustacea
found on the rock and kelp banks along our turbulent shores the flesh has
a firm almost seafood character, sweet like scallops and prawns. Overfished along our coast in the past, research has shown that
when protected in marine reserves the numbers come back again. As a rock
angler you may only remove two of these magnificent deep-bodied fish whose
sleek silver skin turns black after removing them from the sea.
At Stellenbosch Hills Winery recently I
was treated to some brilliant galjoen cooked over coals. I went on a real trip of nostalgia – it is at least 12 years
since I have eaten this magical fish. Accompanied by stewed sweet
potatoes, vetkoek, hanepoot grape jam and koeksisters. You cannot get more
Cape than this. From amongst the selection of wines tasted were I to
choose a wine to drink with this Lucullan feast du Cap, it would be the
Stellenbosch Hills Chardonnay 2004 its new French Oak, singing with the
full smoky flavours of the galjoen. Great
ratio of quality to price as well.
There are other "national"
symbols too. Bobotie, smoked snoek, madumbis, wild spinach, thick
maize porridge to blot up stewed meat. The very thought makes one
start building the appetite anew.
Michael
Olivier, London trained chef, top restaurateur and well known food
and wine writer, is an ardent lover of good cooking and fine wines.
Photography
of Michael Olivier by Alain Proust -
A Restaurateur Remembers
