CHRISTMAS ROAST

ROAST LOIN OF PORK WITH SAGE

serves 6

1,6 kg              pork loin, de-boned

handful of sage, washed

4 cloves             garlic, peeled

salt and pepper

Method:

Pre-heat the oven to 230ºC.

Season the inside of the pork loin with salt and pepper.

Roughly cut the garlic cloves into 6 - 8 pieces and scatter over the pork.

Evenly layer the sage leaves over the pork then roll up to enclose the sage and tie securely with butcher's string.

Pat the rind dry with kitchen towel.

Rub the surface with a little olive oil the sprinkle generously with salt and a little pepper.

Stand on a rack placed in a roasting pan.

Roast the pork loin for 25 minutes uncovered until the pork crackling just starts to blister.

Turn the oven down to 180ºC and roast for a further 1 hour and 10 minutes. (10 mins. per every 500g)

Remove from the oven and leave to stand for a further 10 minutes.

Then, carefully slice the pork into rounds and serve with the roasted potatoes with apples and the salsa verde.

 Note: The pork must be roasted for 20 minutes for every 450 g of pork.

SALSA VERDE

1 slice              day old white bread (20 g), no crusts

¼ cup              white wine vinegar

120 g               Italian parsley, picked

2 cloves           garlic, peeled

yolk of 1 hard boiled egg

250 ml             olive oil

Method:

Place the bread into a bowl and pour over the white wine vinegar. Leave to stand for about 10 minutes.

Squeeze out the liquid from the bread and transfer the bread only to the bowl of a food processor.

Add the parsley, egg yolk and garlic to the bread.

Pulse to just combine.

With the motor running, add the olive oil in a thin stream.

Season with a pinch of salt and some pepper.

Transfer to a clean jar and leave to stand in the fridge until ready to use.

Will keep in an air-tight container for up to a week in the fridge.

THE SHOWROOM, JAN. 2008

It's coming up for holidays now and we'll be off to Franschhoek in January. I'm looking forward to it and I'm already booking restaurants.


Last January, we had dinner at The Showroom in Greenpoint, Cape Town. I must confess that I had looked forward with huge anticipation to dinner at the Showroom. Bruce Robertson's reputation and several restaurant accolades had followed the opening of this glamorous eating spot. Sadly this restaurant has also closed it's doors in the last year, having fallen prey to the recession.


Here are my recollections of that dinner in Jan 2008 with my friends Nicky and Fran and my partner, Richard.

I am a self-confessed fan of Bruce Robertson and dinner at his restaurant was one night of our holiday which I was eagerly anticipating.

Writing this account now, I can remember little detail of the menu or the dishes we sampled on the night. I do remember that I started with a chicken liver parfait with home-made nut butter and apple tarte tatin which I thought was one of the best I've ever had. I had a moment of trepidation about the 'nut' butter but the combination with the parfait was superb. Richard had a salad starter with asparagus dressed with truffle oil which sadly overwhelmed the other flavours and all I can remember was the truffle. Nicky and Fran's dishes looked superb but, saldly, I cannot remember what they were - despite having sampled them both!

For mains, diners are tasked with selecting their own sauce to accompany their chosen dish from a large-ish selection. Wait-staff, who are very well informed, are on hand to assist with the pairing process. This is part of the interactive dining process (together with having the working kitchen fully on show to patrons). Fuddy-duddy that I am, I would have preferred to have Chef Robertson himself select the sauce to accompany my pork dish. I chose an Asian sauce which featured soy and 5 spice which went very well with my braised pork belly. The latter being the hot new item on menus in the Cape. I thoroughly enjoyed my dish but Richard was less successful with his Guinea Fowl with sauce Perigord. He thought the stock base which had been used was meat-based and said that he couldn't taste much of the 'fowl. Others at the table seemed to like their choices but there were no raves.

Dessert can often be the highlight of an evening. The Showroom pulls out all the stops with presentation especially with their 'Snakes and Ladders'. Unfortunately, I found that other than presentation, they were quite ordinary.

The winelist was superb, featuring some of the best the Cape has to offer. We had 2 good bottles of wine and thoroughly enjoyed the evening out. The final verdict was that the the show, while quite a good performance, was never going to live up to the anticipation.

I wonder how Trevor Manuel, sitting on the upper level that night, enjoyed his dinner.

UMAMI RESTAURANT, Salt Rock, KZN, Nov 2007

It was somewhat depressing to hear that Umami in Salt Rock had closed. For me, it was probably the best restaurant in Durban, producing food of a very high standard, in a very stylish restaurant setting.


I have been told that the restaurant was closed for 'personal' reasons. I suppose that's code for "did not close for financial reasons". Whatever those reasons are, it means there are now even fewer fine restaurants to choose from in greater Durban - and also means that we will have to drive greater distances to find good food.


While the recession has meant that several good restaurants around the country have closed shop, in Durban this is particularly painful as we have so few GOOD restaurants to start with. 


After my first visit to Umami in November 2007, I penned a few lines about my experience which I will share with you here:

I was very privileged to finally get out to Umami in Salt Rock for dinner on Saturday. The distance - just under an hour's drive from Durban - has been a bit off-putting. Once on the N2 though, it was relatively easy to find.

Located on the Dunkirk housing estate, the restaurant layout and decor is fantastic. All modern and and minimal with doors which fold out (in good weather) to open up the restaurant to the elements.

The menu is also modern, what I would describe as modern South African - hinting at influences from Asia to France but not being defined by those influences!

Four of us had ventured out to dinner (on a very rainy night) which meant that we got to sample a good variety of the menu offerings. To start, I had Tempura prawns served with a satay-style sauce. The fat prawns in their light, crisp batter and the nutty sauce was superb, balanced by cucumber noodles. My two friends had the grilled prawns on watermelon which they gobbled up without sharing! Richard had a Carprese salad with basil pesto.

For mains, Richard had the confit duck with a sauce enriched with foie gras. The duck was crisp and I think it may have been the best choice of the evening. My two friends had the Wild(?) Norwegian salmon with an Asian nuoc cham sauce and sweet potato chips. I had a small taste of Michael's salmon which was beautifully cooked. My main of springbok was slightly over-cooked, served on mushy peas with a gorgonzola sauce.

For dessert, there was an almost unanimous rush for the molten chocolate volcanoes on a creamy mint ice-cream. Beautifully presented and pronounced delicious all around. I felt compelled to try the traditional malva pudding which was served with a very good ice-cream (I now cannot remember the flavour).

The wine-list was pretty good. We found an excellent Thelema Sutherland Sauvignon Blanc and a bottle of Fairview Viognier. Sadly there was no wooded Chardonnay or Shiraz on the wine-list.

Service was ok. We could have done without the Maitre d' reciting the entire menu to us and there was a bit of a fluff-up with the bill. Prices are in the upper end and will be even more justified with better informed service.

I will definitely be back for the Sunday lunch - preferably in good weather

HARTFORD HOUSE

INSIDER'S PERSPECTIVE

One of the benefits of not having to keep the hours of a working Chef is that I can resume all the regular activities that I could not while slogging out 18-hour days! Undoubtedly, at the top of my list of re-discovered pleasures is the time to eat out again in fine restaurants.

I recently had the immense pleasure of returning to Hartford House in Mooi River. The opportunity to sample Jackie Cameron's cuisine again was the biggest draw of the weekend and added more anticipation to the trip. At 26, Jackie has been at Hartford now for 7 years and since my last visit just over a year ago, her style has evolved further. While rooted in French classicism. her style benefits from the wealth of global exposure. The best way to describe this style is "Modern South African", a term which has not yet found a comfortable place in the local cooking lexicon. Now, a lightness of touch, a more daring juxtaposition of flavours and a greater reliance on seasonal, local produce is evident in her execution of the dishes we were treated to.

Dinner started with drinks at the bar accompanied by delicate canapés which got the tastebuds primed for the dinner to follow. Jackie's menu is structured along a 5 course set menu (you need to inform the kitchen in advance of any dietary restriction). The starter of Garden Pea soup with Parma Ham ice-cream was topped with oven-dried slivers of local ham cured in the Italian style. The freshness of the peas was more than evident with the counter-point of the ice-cream adding both surprise and dimension to the soup.

The highlight of the dinner for me was the next course: A smoked salmon salad. The smoked salmon came wrapped in Nori, quail eggs, micro herbs, croûtons and caper berries and was accompanied by a horseradish cream and lemon olive oil dressing. This was a beautifully presented dish where the produce shone. Every element on the plate proved to be a sterling supporting cast to the salmon. Lightness of texture combined with complexity of flavour to turn this simple-sounding dish into one worthy of Michelin star status.

The main of Dijon-blackened beef fillet topped with a shiitake butter and accompanied by truffle-infused creamed potatoes with seasonal asparagus and truffle sauce sounded interesting enough. However the attention to detail in the execution resulted in a tender-as-butter fillet, still beautifully rare in the middle with intense, juicy flavour. The truffle flavour was difficult to detect but the shiitake butter brought an amazing earthy depth to the dish. The supporting asparagus with their clean flavour was a perfectly judged accompaniment. This dish, more than any of the others on the night, demonstrates Jackie's ability to turn the (somewhat) ordinary into food to make any foodie weak at the knees.

With a new pastry chef forming part of Jackie's brigade, dessert has become a more creative effort. We were treated to what can best be simplified as 'doughnuts and tea'. A not-too-sweet spiced chai latte accompanied the doughnut together with fruit compôte, a smattering of thick dark chocolate sauce and Crackle-Pop ice-cream. The ice-cream came topped with small shards of candy which exploded in the mouth. I loved most the surprise and playful element of this course. I'm sure with more guidance and experience the offerings from this kitchen section will no doubt become even more delectable.

At the level that Jackie is cooking at, it is inevitable that some guests will complain over the merest flaw. Regrettably I'm going to be one of them: We ended with a Midlands cheese board accompanied by pickles and relish. This course, was not up to the standard of the rest of the meal. The cheeses, as ordinary as a super-market bought cheese platter, did not inspire. The Brie could have been served closer to room temperature and the platter as a whole could have been better structured in the "less is more" vein. This criticism is of course to nit-pick.

The multi-award winning wine list caters to even the most picky wine connoisseur; with a range of price points to suit smaller budgets as well as those wishing to splurge. The evening's menu featured two wine recommendations: Glen Carlou Quartz Stone Chardonnay 2005 and Meerlust Cabernet Sauvignon 2005. These were also available by the glass. Jane and I particularly enjoyed the Chardonnay which was a beautifully balanced affair of subtle acidity with lemon overtones and butteriness - all underpinned by finely balanced oaking.

Service was nearly flawless and Jackie and her team deserve every accolade they have won (and those which I have no doubt will follow). It is no wonder that they have been rated the 10th best restaurant in the country - an accolade I'm sure they will replicate this year! In the words of the Michelin guide: "Worth the journey".