wild mushroom risotto

A few years ago, when my mom and I had just moved to Durban, my mom was making new friends and having them over for one of her famous dinner parties. From the decked out table to the flowers, my mom is a master at hosting and cooking. The new friends coming over were a delight and she couldn't wait to impress them. Hours before she was in the kitchen cooking away and making sure everything was perfect. We were having prawn risotto. She tucked the completed meal into the warming draw, washed up and got ready for her guests to arrive. After the welcome drinks it was time for dinner. My mom’s new friends were offered to dish up first. Much to my mother shock as she was dishing, she realized that the risotto had gone stogy and was now like porridge, which you couldn't flick of the spoon if you tried. After dinner it came out. Jackie, my mom’s new friend was a chef (which she politely let out during dinner) the laughter that preceded the porridge like risotto has now resulted in a best friendship that has been going for 14 years! 

Risotto has that reputation of being difficult to make and even harder to not over cook. With this recipe I believe we will break boundaries. The biggest trick is to finish it off, as you are about to serve. But who knows, if it bombs there might be a best friendship in the mix for you. 

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup wild mushrooms
  • 30g dried porcini mushrooms, soaked in 500ml warm water
  • 1 medium brown onion, finely chopped
  • 500ml light chicken stock
  • 200g arborio rice
  • 80g parmesan cheese
  • 30g butter
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions:

Remove porcini mushrooms from soaking liquid and gently squeeze. Mix the porcini stock with the chicken stock and reserve for cooking. Chop up the porcini and fresh wild mushrooms. Fry in small batches until nice and caramelised set aside for later. Don’t add to much oil when you are frying, as you don't want them to go soggy. 

Sauté onions gently in olive oil until light golden in colour over a medium heat. 

Add Arborio rice and stir until is completely coated in oil. You will see the rice go slightly translucent while you are frying it with the onions. at this stage you can begin to add the stock. 

Add 100ml hot stock and stir continuously until it has been almost completely absorbed, then add another 100ml. repeat the process with the remaining stock. If you wish to wait until your guests arrive then you will stop the cooking half way through the stock. When your guests arrive put the pan back on your medium heat and continue the process of adding the stock and stirring in until it is absorbed. Remember your stock must be hot! 

Test to see if the rice is cooked when you add the last addition of stock.

The rice should be creamy, tender but with a slight bite. if not quite tender enough continue adding spoonful’s of water until cooked through.

To serve, stir through mushrooms, Parmesan and butter season to taste and serve immediately.

-Melissa 

 

tea poached asian chicken salad

This salad embodies two of my favourite things, crunch and Asian flavours. It’s fresh and healthy and the poached chicken its just so juicy! I've always wondered how patient a chef is to julienne vegetables but to be honest, with the invention of a peeler that julienne’s that fascination has disappeared. I can how ever confirm that it is a lot of fun grabbing your veg and slicing them into tiny perfect strips for this salad. 

The dressing for this salad takes me straight to Thailand. I can picture myself standing in the street food markets in Kopanghan dunking my chicken satay into the sauce. Some of the best memories of my life were had in Thai food markets. Perhaps that’s why this salad has such a special place in my recipe heart. We hired a scooter and whenever we wanted, nipped to different parts of the island we were on. After feeding an elephant a few bananas we stumbled across this amazing little food court, out in the open, where all the locals got their fill. From fresh sushi, chicken satay’s and fruit shakes this place was like mecca. I'm very open to the fact that I might of ate myself into a food coma that day but I can assure you that it was worth every. Single. Bite. 

serves: 2

Ingredients:

  • lapsang suchong tea
  • 2 chicken fillets
  • 1 carrot, finely sliced on the length
  • small handful of fine green beans
  • 1 cup red cabbage, finely sliced
  • 4 radishes, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup coriander leaves
  • 1 cup thinly sliced cucumber
  • ½ cup pumpkin seeds, roasted
  • ¼ cup toasted sesame seeds

Asian dressing:

  • 3 tblsp soy sauce
  • 1 tsp grated ginger
  • ½ tsp garlic, finely chopped
  • 1/3 cup lime juice
  • 2 tblsp honey
  • 1 tblsp mint, finely chopped
  • ½ cup olive oil or sesame oil
  • salt and pepper

Instructions:

Bring 500ml water with tea to the boil in a saucepan. I usually use a small strainer and fill that with the tealeaves, and just put in straight into the water. Add your chicken fillets and simmer for 12mins. You can turn the chicken around at the 6-minute mark. Remove and let cool.  Once cool slice chicken and toss with the rest of the ingredients (that you have julienned by knife or by slicer) and dressing, season with salt and pepper and plate.

Asian dressing:

Blend all the ingredients together and season to taste. 

Serve on a hot summers day with some fresh infused waters! 

-Melissa 

 

 

 

roast lamb rack

There is something wonderful about a home that smells like a roast on a Sunday. In fact, any day of the week. I love cooking and having friends arrive over to a home that smells of nothing but delicious aromas that kiss your nose and pull you into the home.

I must confess sometimes I close my kitchen window just to let the smell fill the kitchen while I have my glass of wine and cheerfully cook on. Luckily I live in a city that has the most spectacular wine lands a stone throw away and i am fortunate enough to not only enjoy drinking the best but also to pair the best with my food for dinner parties. After all what is a great dinner party without world-class wine? 

So here is a tasty and juicy lamb rack with roasted vegetables

serves: 4

Ingredients:

  • 1x free range rack of lamb about 850g
  • 230g tenderstem broccoli 
  • 4 large carrots 
  • 4 baby beets or one small bunch 
  • 700g baby potatoes 
  • 2 large brown onion 
  • 1 garlic bulb 
  • 4 rosemary twigs 
  • olive oil 

Instructions:

Preheat your oven to 220c

Get out your roasting pan that has high edges as you are going to roast all the veg except the broccoli together underneath your lamb rack. 

Peel and chop your onions into quarters and put them into your roasting tray. Followed by your peeled carrots and then the beetroot, that can also be roughly chopped into bite-sized pieces. Put your baby potatoes in with the vegetables. Cut your garlic bulb through the middle and place the whole bulb in with the veg. once it has roasted you can just pop out the pieces, as they will be juicy and are easier to remove from the skin. Remove your rosemary from three of the twigs and mix it together with your veg. drizzle over a generous amount of olive oil and for this part, use your hands and mix everything together making sure every piece is covered in olive oil. 

Take out your lamb rack. Salt and pepper your lamb rack and drizzle with a little bit of olive oil. You are going to render down the fat of the lamb rack. To render fat you require a low to medium heat, as you don't want the fat to burn, you want to achieve golden crispy fat. You want to hear the sizzle. Place your lamb rack in the pan fat side down. Make sure you watch your lamb, as you do not want the fat to burn or the meat to cook. Keep it fat side down for about 10 minutes or until evenly golden brown. You will see the oil in the pan increase as the fat renders down. 

Once rendered place your lamb rack on top of your vegetables (fat side up) and sprinkle your lamb with remaining rosemary. Pop your roasting tray into the oven and turn down the heat to 180c. Let it roast away for 45minutes. 

For the last 10 minutes you are going to blanch your tender stem broccoli. Boil the kettle and put your tender stems in a pot, over a medium heat. Add your boiling water. I let my broccoli cook for no more than 5 minutes, as I love the crunch and freshness of them. a fork must just be able to pierce them. Remove them off the heat. 

Take your roast out of the oven. Your potatoes should be soft and your meat should be golden. 

Let your lamb rack rest for a further 5 minutes before slicing. When you slice into the lamb it should be beautifully pink inside. 

Serve the lamb cutlets on a bed of veg with a side of tender stem broccoli and a fantastic red wine. 

For this meal I chose the Doolhof wine estate, lady in red 2008. A warm, rich Bordeaux-style wine

Tasting notes: Garnet red wine with an intense perfumed mélange of red and black fruits with cedar and oak undertones. On the palate, the fruit / oak balance is harmonious with soft, firm tannins, cassis and plum flavours producing a wine of excellent structure. The fruit lingers long on the palate. Its suited beautifully to red meats particularly lamb. You can get this amazing wine here

-Melissa 

 

foraging in franschhoek, cape town

wild goose and duck rilette, duck skin crackling brioche, fig cultured cream, nightshade, granadilla vinaigrette, crispy milk skin and ferns

Warm salad of forest mushroom and free range beef hump, sorrel and radishes

Nick's home made legion cheese, quince pate de fruit, wild peach chutney and mosbolletjie

If there is one thing I have learnt, is that food makes me happy. Like deep down in my soul happy. Photographing it, eating it and meeting the people who are as passionate about food as I am, really moves my soul. One such person is Chris Erasmus of Foliage. 

I was having one of those mornings. When nothing really goes right and you are not sure why. I was feeling glum and not up to shooting this morning. But the call of the food summoned me out of bed. After much debate and several snooze buttons later I pulled myself together packed up my gear and took a drive.

The drive was to Franschhoek. a little French Huguenot village at the base of the Franschhoek mountains. By the time I was driving into the village I was already feeling lighter. Just the beauty of the surroundings can inspire. I stopped my car outside of foliage. A beautiful restaurant with a warm earthy feel to it. Chris Erasmus, head chef and owner was there to meet me. I knew I would love him because his energy instantly made me forget that I was glum. We were going on a forest foraging mission and he couldn't be more excited to share it with me. 

We hoped in the car and drove into the mountains. Parking in a secret spot (Chris has an arrangement with the farm owner) we hoped out, baskets and waters in hand. 

Chris is wildly knowledgeable of the forests and surrounds and I never realized the education I was going to get from this high-spirited chef and forager. Sharing his little nuggets of information of how to hunt for the best mushrooms and how to pick them, we wondered through the forest finding large fungi that seemed to belong in a fairytale. Chris shared with me how mushrooms grow to the moon just like the tides do. Simply beautiful. I had to take a moment from our high intensity walk to just breath in the forest and all its beauty. We did a huge loop in the forest, passed the cattle and up this beautiful walk way and before I knew it we were back at the car.

"Just one more stop" Chris mentioned. The stop was to collect fern tips and berries for the restaurant. Most of his produce is foraged. Which I think is simply marvelous. He is like the bear grills of Franschhoek. After we had collected all we needed, we made our way back to foliage. He speaks fondly of his mother a huge food inspiration that taught him how to pickle and make jams, to appreciate the earth and the small community that is Franschhoek. 

With laughter and energy Chris enters the kitchen smiling at his staff. He mentions it will only take a few seconds to prepare the plates. With ease and simplicity he plated the most beautiful dishes to be photographed. Inspired by Margot Janse and René Redzipe, Chris truly is a food and flavour genius. 

The food is simply and the ingredients speak for themselves. Who would have thought that foie gras and fern tips go together? But they do. The fern taste like a hybrid of chilli and walnut and leaves your tongue tingling. The colours on the plate flow and the finest attention to detail really makes you see that Chris is a world-class chef. 

 

I left foliage after the day had ended feeling uplifted by its energy and inspired by its beautiful food. I felt moved that you could live from the earth and translate that food into magnificent plates that would hold up to any five start restaurant around the world. It left me dreaming and on a high. A much better end to my day than the beginning. 

-Melissa 

Foliage Restaurant Menu, Reviews, Photos, Location and Info - Zomato



rhubarb and honey tart

Rhubarb is not something I was not familiar with growing up as a child. I’m not sure why, but we just never used it. In my adult life I must admit the first person I saw use rhubarb was Jamie Oliver. He grows it in his garden and he uses it in so many recipes. Thanks to him I got the bee in my bonnet and decided to hunt down a great recipe. This one is so tasty because of it's layering of not only rhubarb but frangipane and honey which balances out the tart flavours of this celery like plant. I’m rather excited that I have discovered rhubarb and there are definitely many more exciting recipes to come. 

For this recipe you can use your own home made puff pastry or store bought puff pastry. If you get a good store bought puff there is no judgment here. Although I do think that home made just tastes better.

Serves: 6 

Ingredients:

Puff pastry:

•    250 grams cake flour

•    Pinch of salt 

•    250 grams butter

•    5ml lemon juice or brandy 

•    175ml ice cold water Filling:

•    1 cup almond flour

•    6 tbsp. castor sugar

•    ¼ cup cake flour

•    ¼ tsp. salt

•    6 tbsp. unsalted butter, softened

•    3 eggs

•    1 tsp. vanilla

•    1 fresh bunch of rhubarb roughly 500g (I like to go for the reddest stalks)

Instructions:

preheat oven to 200c

Puff pastry:

Sift flour and salt into a bowl. Rub in a piece of butter the size of a walnut. 

Add lemon juice or brandy to water, make a well in the center of flour and pour in about 2/3 of the liquid.

Mix it with a palette knife or a round bladed knife. When the dough is beginning to form, add the remaining water.

Turn the dough out on to a clean counter that has been dusted with flour. Knead the dough for 2-3 minutes, and then roll out to a square about 1.3-2cm thick.

Beat the remaining butter if necessary to make it pliable and place in center of dough. Fold the dough up over butter to enclose it completely (sides and ends over center like a parcel)

Wrap it in a cloth or in greaseproof paper and refrigerate for 15-20 minutes 

Flour your clean worktop, take the dough out, the join facing upwards, and bring rolling pin down on the dough 3-4 times to flatten slightly.

Now roll out to a rectangle about 1.3-2cm thick. Fold into three, ends to middle, as accurately as possible, if necessary pulling the ends to keep them rectangular.

Seal the edges with hand or rolling pin and turn the dough half round to bring the edges toward you.

Roll out again and fold in three (keep note of the turns given)

Set aside in refrigerator for 5 minutes. Repeat this process, giving a total of six turns with a 15 minutes rest after each two turns. Then leave in the refrigerator until wanted. 

Roll out pastry to fit a baking sheet. Place pastry on greaseproof paper on baking sheet and keep chilled in the fridge or freezer until needed. If the butter in the pastry melts it will not puff up.

To make the almond paste, pop everything in a food processor and blend until thoroughly mixed. You can mix by hand but make sure you use good elbow grease! 

Evenly trim down the rhubarb stalks. Gently sauté stalks in a little butter and pinch of sugar until they begin to soften. Set aside to cool.

To assemble the tart: spread the almond paste evenly over the pastry. Place the rhubarb on top of the almond paste sideways next to each other-like little soldier and fold in the sides of the pastry. Brush the sides with a beaten egg yolk.  Place in the oven and turn heat down to 180C and bake for 40mins, checking towards the end that it does not brown too much.

When removed from the oven dust with icing sugar.

To serve: drizzle with honey and cut 

-Melissa