WHISKY LIVE FESTIVAL

I was invited by Brandhouse to join them at the Whisky Live festival to experience their Whisky Sensorium.

I am by no means a whisky expert, in fact I know/knew very little about it. I am more of a brandy drinker. 

So I decided it was about time to enter the world of whisky.

The Sensorium was divided into 4 “worlds” of flavours and the whiskies obviously categorised accordingly. 

Fresh. Rich. Vibrant. Bold.

For the amateur (me) this was very helpful to get a good overview of the different whisky styles and to figure out which whiskies fits where.

Another thing I enjoyed about how they presented their whiskies was the fact that they paired the blended whisky with the leading single malt of that blend. Let me explain, you’d taste the Johnnie Walker Black Label and then taste the Caol Ila single malt which is the lead whisky in the Black Label blend.

Similarly the Johnnie Walker Red label’s leading whisky is Talisker, the leading whisky of Bell’s Special Reserve is Singleton. 

So if you enjoy the popular whisky blends but want to move into the world of single malts then a good place to start is to find out what the lead whisky is in your favourite blend.

A few other random whisky facts:

• Unlike wine & brandy, you are advised to add a bit of water
• Bells Special reserve is the best value for money whisky blend (so I was told but I now agree)
• White Horse is actually a great whisky (contrary to popular belief and what the branding suggests)
• Whisky is the result of the distillation of base beer
• The year on a bottle of whisky indicates the youngest barrel that went into that bottle

Hieronymus Brunschwig, 15^th century doctor and distiller on making whisky from beer: It is “the separation of the gross from the subtle and the subtle from the gross…to make the spiritual lighter by its subtlety”

CAN I HAVE SOME BEAVER BUTT ICE CREAM PLEASE?

If you are still not convinced that buying the original ingredient is better than buying the processed version, maybe this will change your mind...

You thought vanilla flavouring came from processed vanilla pods? Think again...

STRAWBERRY PANA COTTA

Four Cousins introduced 2 new liqueurs, a Marula fruit cream and a Strawberry cream, and asked a few food bloggers to invent recipes using either of these liqueurs.

I decided to make a strawberry pana cotta. This was my first attempt at a pana cotta and it is really quite an easy dessert to make plus you can make it in advance and leave it in the fridge until you're ready to serve up.

Ingredients

1 cup cream

1 cup milk

¼ cup sugar

1 cup Four Cousins Strawberry Cream

1 tbs gelatine powder

2/3 cup greek yoghurt

250g fresh strawberries

3 tbs icing sugar

1 tbs lemon juice

 Instructions

Heat the cream, milk and sugar in a pot and stir regularly until the sugar has dissolved. Take it off the heat just before it starts to boil.

Add the gelatine and give it a proper whisk so that the gelatine dissolves.

Add the strawberry cream and let it rest for a couple of minutes.

Now stir in the yoghurt and pour into moulds / ramekins and place in the fridge until set

(a good couple of hours at least).

Cut the strawberries into halves or quarters depending on their size.

Put the strawberries, icing sugar and lemon juice in a saucepan over medium heat and keep stirring until it becomes syrupy.

To remove the pana cotta from the moulds, dip each mould into a bowl of warm water for about 10 seconds (just deep enough so that the water doesn’t flow over the top) and whack it between your hands until it starts to loosen from the mould. Now turn it out onto a plate.

Pour the syrup and strawberries over each pana cotta and serve. 

Disclaimer: Whenever I am using products that were sent to me for review or blog posts that are part of a competition, I will disclose it at the end of such a blog post. No hidden agendas or product propaganda. This blog post was written in response to the Four Cousins invitation to showcase their new products.  

SODASTREAM REVOLUTION

A while ago the kind folks from Sodastream sent me one of their soda makers to give it a go.

This is an impressive looking machine in its gold and beige colour scheme called the Revolution.

So what makes it cooler than the one your mom used to have?

- There is no manual pumping, you screw in the bottle, choose from 1 of 4 levels of fizziness 

and push the button. It’s electronic.

- The LCD display indicates how much gas is left in the cylinder so that you don’t have to face the 

disappointment of not having soda water for that whisky you so looked forward to.

- It seems like (not sure if I’m correct) the machine shuts off when you’re not using it so it doesn’t waste electricity .

- It looks much better on a kitchen counter than the old robot looking ones.

Honestly, I’m not a big fan of the ready-made syrups so I decided to make my own.

(I’m told the Red Bull flavoured syrup is quite good)

Rosemary, Lemon & Honey syrup

This goes well with just soda water but even better with soda water and a shot of gin. The flavours mix well with the botanical flavours in gin.

Ingredients

1 ½ T fresh chopped rosemary

½ cup sugar

2 T lemon juice (fresh is always better)

1 ½ T honey

2 T water

Add all but the water to a pot, heat it up and stir continuously until the sugar melted and it resembles a syrup. Add the water and give it one last stir.

Strain and pour into a sterilised bottle and let it cool down.

Add 30ml gin and 30ml of the syrup to a chilled glass filled with soda water and ice. Add a slice of fresh lemon, a straw and imagine you’re sitting at Tom Cruise’s beach bar in Cocktail.

CHOCOLATE & AMARULA MOUSSE TART

If you are on a diet, don't read this. You'll burst into tears. If not, enjoy!

Ingredients

Tart base

100g PnP cream crackers

100g salted butter, melted

Tart filling

90g dark chocolate

60ml castor sugar

2 eggs, separated

80ml Amarula liqueur

180ml milk

Caramelised pears

1 pear, sliced

60ml castor sugar

Extra

Icing sugar for dusting

Instructions

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Using a food processor (or manual labour), crunch the cream crackers to a fine crumble. 

Mix with the melted butter. 

Spray a fluted tart tin (preferably one with a removable base) with Spray & Cook or smear with butter. 

Layer the bottom and sides of the tin with the crumble and flatten the crumble on the bottom and onto the sides of the tin. 

Blind bake for 10 minutes and let it cool down.

 Melt the chocolate in a double boiler. Add the castor sugar and stir until melted. 

Mix in the egg yolks and remove from heat.

In a different pot heat up the milk until it starts to form bubbles, add the Amarula and remove from the heat.

Incorporate a small amount of the milk mixture into the chocolate mix and stir. 

Slowly add the rest of the milk while whisking the chocolate mixture.

Whisk the egg whites until it starts to form peaks and gently fold it into the chocolate custard.

Spoon the mixture into the cookie base and put it in the fridge for 4 hours (or preferably overnight) to allow it to set.

Add the pear slices and sugar to a hot pan and caramelise over medium heat. 

Lay them out on baking paper.

Once the tart has set, dust it with icing sugar and decorate with the pear slices.

£10 A WEEK FOOD SHOP

I'm not one for cat emails, meat-free Mondays, mental detox or sympathy evoking humanitarian stories. Ashamedly, the economist in me overrules all of that.

Today I'm making an exception.

I love this story for 3 reasons:

1) It's about food

2) She never blamed anyone for her circumstances or adopted the 

"I am a victim and now the world owes me something" attitude

3) It has a good ending (I'm getting soft, I know)

It's a good read. 

Click on the link below.

10-pound-food-shop-blog

PICK A FINGER

To be honest I don’t like sardines or cabbage or beans or brown rice…I do like feta though. 

So this week’s Freshly Blogged ingredients was really a challenge for me – to cook something 

that I’d be happy to eat with ingredients I really don’t like. 

This was more determination than inspiration. But I think I succeeded…

I polished the plate after taking the photo.

If you agree, please vote for my recipe here!

Ingredients

Rice cake

¾ cup PnP Brown Rice

1l hot water

2 sachets Ina Paarman concentrated vegetable stock

1 cup chopped cabbage

½ cup chopped green beans

1 disk PnP Plain Feta Cheese, roughly crumbled

2/3 cup grated Emmentaler cheese

Sardine Pâté

1 sardine (from a can of Lucky Star Pilchards in tomato sauce)

40ml PnP Greek Style yoghurt

½ tbs Ina Paarman Lemon & Rosemary seasoning

Fish Fingers

4 sardines (from a can of Lucky Star Pilchards in tomato sauce)

80ml cake flour

2 tsp Robertson’s Garlic Salt

1 tsp Robertson’s White Pepper

1 disk PnP Plain Feta Cheese

1 medium egg

Garnish

PnP Cayenne pepper

Crumbled PnP Plain Feta Cheese

Instructions

Bring water to the boil, add the stock sachets then add the rice.

Let it simmer for 45 minutes.

In a food processor, blend all the pâté ingredients together until it resembles the smooth texture of a pâté. Scoop into a zip lock bag.

Next add all the fish finger ingredients to the food processor 

(it’s ok if there is still a little bit of leftovers from the pâté in the processor). 

Use the pulse function of the food processor – you don’t want to overdo it, 

you just want to cut up the fish and feta and get the egg to bind it all together.

If the mixture is still quite runny, add some more flour 

(egg & fish sizes differ so your mixture might be wetter / dryer than mine). 

Flatten out the mixture on a cutting board or on baking paper using a spatula.

Heat oil in a non-stick pan (medium to high heat).

Using a large (sharp) knife cut off 10cm x 2cm fingers one at a time. 

It’ll probably stick to the knife, then just allow it slide off the knife into the pan.

Once crispy on the bottom side, carefully turn them over. 

They only need to be turned once.

After the fish fingers are done, add the cabbage to the pan and flash fry for a couple of minutes 

then drain on paper towel.

Once the rice has cooked for 45 minutes, add the beans to the same pot and let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Drain and return the rice & beans to the pot, also add the cabbage and feta cheese and set aside. 

Mix well and press the mixture into a cookie cutter or other object to form a “cake”.

The rules for this challenge prevented me from using the oven so I used a blowtorch to melt the 

emmentaler cheese over the rice cake but you can just pop it under the grill.

To assemble:

Cut open 1 corner of the zip lock bag and use it as a piping bag to pipe dollops of the pâté onto each fish finger. 

Garnish with crumbled feta.

Sprinkle cayenne pepper over the melted cheese top of the rice cake.

Disclaimer: For this recipe and for the upcoming challenges, I'm using and promoting PnP specific ingredients - it is a PnP competition after all! If, during the competition, I come across a PnP ingredient which I feel is inferior I will suggest an alternative in the recipe. But so far the ingredients have been great so I doubt that will be necessary!

KAROO TAPAS

Round 3...

For this week's Freshly Blogged challenge we were given typical South African ingredients - maize meal, ostrich, pinotage. I decided to make ostrich sosaties (skewers), sweet corn soufflés and a pinotage onion marmelade.

You can read more about the competition here

The competition is getting stiff and I need all the votes I can get! Please take a minute and 

vote for my recipe here

Ingredients

Ostrich skewers

500g ostrich sausage

1 cup of PnP dried peaches and mangoes

wooden skewers

100ml PnP hot chutney

Onion marmalade

2 medium onions

250ml Drostdy-Hof Pinotage (you know what to do with the rest of the bottle)

100ml white sugar

Fresh sugar snaps (for garnish)

Sweetcorn soufflé

60ml butter

60ml maize meal

3ml salt

5ml mustard powder

5ml dried chilli flakes

250ml milk

4 sweet corns

4 eggs, separated

Instructions

Start a coal fire

Boil the kettle, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees, clean the sweet corns, pour your first glass of pinotage.

Soak the skewers in hot water and in a separate bowl soak the dried fruit – both for 5 min.

Take the sausage and carefully twist it a couple of times every 5cm and cut into smaller sausages.

Drain the fruit.

Now thread the sausages and fruit onto the skewers.

Place the whole sweet corns in a bowl, add about 1cm of hot water and close with a lid. 

Pop it in the microwave for 5 min.

Cut off the 2 ends of the onion (roots and stalk sides). Now cut them in half (around it’s belly). 

Remove the outer layer of 2 onion halves as in the picture.

Roughly chop up the rest.

Heat oil in a pan and sauté the onions. 

Add the red wine and sugar and let it reduce until it becomes syrupy.

Grill the corn over the hot coals until charred. Cut down the sides of the corn to remove the kernels.

In a blender, chop up the corn kernels for about 20 sec.

Melt butter in a double boiler 

(one pot that rests on another one, the bottom one on the stove and half filled with hot water).

Add the maize meal, salt, mustard powder and chilli and stir constantly.

Gradually stir in the milk and boil until thick.

Mix in the sweet corn and egg yolks. Remove from heat.

Whisk the egg whites until peaks start to form and carefully fold it into the mixture.

Pour into greased ramekins and put the ramekins in an oven tray that is filled with 1cm of hot water.

Bake for 40 minutes.

Braai (grill) the skewers over the coals. You want a low heat otherwise the fruit will quickly burn.

Turn them every 5 minutes and baste with chutney after every turn.

The sausages are cooked when you twist them slightly and they break open. (Roughly 20 minutes)

Spoon some of the onion marmalade into the 2 onion “cups” and serve with the fresh sugar snaps.

 Using a sharp knife remove the soufflés from the ramekins.

Plate up and enjoy!

CHOCOLATE & COCKTAIL PAIRING

When I received an invite to the launch of Tanqueray’s new partnership with Lindt, I was confused and intrigued. Gin cocktails and chocolates?

The event was hosted at the Lindt chocolate studio in Design Quarter, Fourways.

We were served an abundance of cocktails, one of which we made ourselves and the rest served up by the expert mixologist. Each cocktail was paired with a specific variety from the Lindt Excellence range.

The 2 that stood out for me was the wasabi, cucumber and lime cocktail, called a Tanqueray Dragon served with Lindt Excellence Wasabi as well as the Flipped Symphony (among other things a raw egg is 

added before shaking it) that was paired with Lindt white milk chocolate.

The Lindt chocolatiers showed off their skills and produced beautiful plates of dessert. A spicy chocolate fondant, passion fruit and white milk chocolate aero, chocolate soil and vanilla marshmallow twirls.

It wasn’t just about eating and drinking, we actually learnt a thing or two about gin, like: 

- London Dry gin is just a variety of gin (like a Bordeaux blend is just a style of wine)

- Gin is flavoured with botanicals. Tanqueray for example is flavoured with juniper berries,

coriander seeds, angelica root and liquorice.

- Gin originated in Holland. Rumour has it that English troops coined the phrase “Dutch courage” 

after observing the “calming” effect gin had on Dutch soldiers before going into battle….

One must take a lesson out of everything in life, right? 

But I can’t decide whether the lesson is that: 

(1) One can have gin with everything, even your dessert; or

(2) One can have chocolate with everything, even your gin…

FRENCH BUNNY CHOW

For week 2 of the Pick n Pay Freshly Blogged competition our challenge was called "Meaty Moment" 

and the ingredients we were given were:

- Knorr Beef Stock Pot

- Beef suet

- Typical soup vegetables (carrot, celery, potato)

- Beef shin

- Star anise

- White wine vinegar

For the duration of the competition we may use pantry ingredients including flour, sugar, eggs, milk, salt, pepper and a few other basics. We were also allowed to omit one of the above ingredients, add one 

grocery item and 2 fresh ingredients.

I decided to omit the star anise (I'm just not a big fan) and to add puff pastry, an onion and tomatoes.

If you like what you see - please go and vote for my recipe by clicking here!

For me a stew needs a starch to wipe up the last bit of sauce on the plate – like a good bunny chow. 

However, I decided to go with something a bit more French and a bit less Durban – a puff pastry casing called a vol-au-vent.

Beef Suet was a new experience to me and I’ll definitely use it more often. It is dirt cheap plus it 

adds a layer of richness to the dish that vegetable oil simply doesn’t have.

Beef shin is a tough, sinewy cut of meat and needs to be pressure cooked or slow cooked. I used a pressure cooker but that step in the recipe could easily be replaced with 4 hours in a slow cooker.

Here is my recipe:

Ingredients

500g beef shin

75ml minced beef suet

1 punnet PnP soup mix (containing 1 potato, 1 carrot, 1 celery stalk – no leafs)

1 medium onion, roughly chopped

2 tomatoes, roughly chopped

20ml PnP white wine vinegar

1 Knorr Beef Stock Pot dissolved in 2 cups of boiling water

1 roll puff pastry, thawed

1 egg,  egg white & yolk mixed

Instructions

Remove the outer layer of skin/sinew from each piece of meat and cut into cubes. 

Keep any bones.

Heat a pressure cooker on the stove to a high heat, add 60ml of beef suet and stir until melted.

Add the chopped onions and sauté for 4 minutes.

Add the remaining tablespoon of suet, then the beef including the bones (they add lots of flavour).

Add a good pinch of salt and pepper.

Brown the meat – the more it sticks to the bottom of the pot, the better!

Add the vinegar and scrape loose all the bits at the bottom of the pot.

Add the vegetables and stir for a few minutes.

Add the stock and close the lid of the pressure cooker.

Cook for 1 hour (from the time of closing the lid)

Pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees.

Use a cookie cutter or other object to cut 4 circles (10cm diameter) from the puff pastry.

Then use a smaller object to press another circle in the middle of each bigger circle – 

don’t cut right through the dough.

Put them on a sheet of baking paper and brush with the egg.

Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes.

Remove from the oven and cut out the crust of each inner circle.

Scoop the filling into each casing (remove any bones!) and cover with the cut out lid.

Disclaimer: For this recipe and for the upcoming challenges, I'm using and promoting PnP specific ingredients - it is a PnP competition after all! If, during the competition, I come across a PnP ingredient which I feel is inferior I will suggest an alternative in the recipe. But so far the ingredients have been great so I doubt that will be necessary!