My wife came across this website last week. We immediately booked ourselves 2 seats!
Go and look at the link and come and join us for a coffee tasting – after all it’s free!
I'll be sure to let you know how it was afterwards!
Birthday Weekend…No jokes.
Friday was my birthday (yes I’ve heard all the April Fool’s day jokes) and our dear friend Lia organised their family’s river house on the Vaal river for a weekend getaway to celebrate!
She was also kind enough to dedicate her Friday post on her blog to my birthday!
Friday afternoon we packed the car joined up with the rest of the clan and headed out of the city for the weekend.
We knew we would arrive well after dark so we stopped for some take away pizza on the way. On arrival, it wasn’t long before the corks popped and we started the weekend with pizza and wine!
Saturday Morning
We took the dirt roads to Parys for a bit of antique shopping and lunch at Hoi Polloi.
It’s quite a unique restaurant in most aspects. The décor, the atmosphere, the location (on top of a motor workshop) and obviously the food!
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| Hoi Polloi's stoep |
Despite the interesting menu and after much debate we all ordered either the gourmet lamb burger with creamy minted tzatziki or the creamy white wine chicken pie.
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| Creamy white wine chicken pie |
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| Gourmet lamb burger with mint tzatziki |
Unfortunately the tzatziki had so much mint in it that the burger was later called the Colgate burger. I just realised again how easily too much herbs (especially the strong ones – coriander, basil, mint etc) can kill a wonderful dish.
The dough used for the pie was not the usual puff pastry type of dough, more like pizza dough. But pizza dough is baked with lots of cheese and fillings on top so it doesn’t dry out except for the outside crust. These “pie pots” were probably baked on their own and the pie filling poured in afterwards. The result was a VERY hard “pie pot”.
Despite this, I’ll probably go back there next time! It has a lovely atmosphere overlooking Parys’ main street and I think we just had bad luck with our limited 2 choices from the menu.
Saturday afternoon
It’s been a while since I made a lekker boerepot!
It takes about 4 hours to prepare and cook a potjie and one seldom has the time to sit and nurture a potjie for 3 hours. Except of course when you are away from home in the bush with not much else to do – then it’s the perfect time to make potjie!
Here’s a quick rundown of how I prepared this particular potjie:
- - First the meat went in (a few pieces at a time) with a bit of onions and garlic just to brown the meat. I used lamb shank and normal beef stew pieces.
- - Once brown I removed them and browned the next lot.
- - I then put all the meat back in the potjie, added about half a bottle of Cab, a packet of sun-dried tomato cook-in-sauce & spices.
- - I left the meat to simmer for about 1h30 in the sauce.
- - Next was the new potatoes, carrots and onions and the bouquet garni (main flavour in it was rosemary). I didn’t stir the meat when adding the vegetables; I simply added them on top of the meat.
- - With the vegetables I added a bit more sauce, this time another packet of the sun-dried tomato sauce, a can of peeled tomatoes, tomato jam and a bit of chutney.
- - I left the potjie (with the meat still simmering and the vegetables steaming) for another hour before adding the softer vegetables – beans, baby marrows, mushrooms and mielies.
- - The last stretch…Letting the softer vegetables steam in the pot until cooked – about 40 minutes.
- - Then I stirred the pot for the first time, turned off the heat and left it to stand for a while before serving it with cooked rice.
Since a potjie takes hours it is advisable to have enough wine, good company and 5 dice to keep you occupied while the potjie slowly does its thing!
Just a last remark, I opened a bottle of Springfield Work of Time 2004 to complement the potjie – what a match! Complex enough for such a rich plate of food but still velvety and smooth.
Thank you to my father-in-law for leaving that bottle at my house a few weeks ago!
I would love to see some of your potjie recipes! If you would like to share your recipe with the rest of us please send it to me and I will post it on the blog.
To my friends - thank you for a wonderfully relaxing weekend and for the good laughs!
Cheers
Chris
Back to basics...
Today is our 2 year wedding anniversary. It was also my cousin’s wedding on Saturday evening so Karlien booked a lovely cottage next to the Crocodile river for us where we spent Sunday evening seeing that Monday was a public holiday.
When we got there I thought to myself - this place really ticks all the boxes – spacious, private, surrounded by trees with the river in the background and a Jacuzzi on the stoep next to an open braai area! It even has a fireplace inside for winter nights.
We would soon find out that this was not going to be a breakaway weekend without challenges…
The first was crossing the Crocodile river after the heavy rain the previous night. I was very hesitant to cross the 50m long low-water bridge but eventually decided to go for it after seeing another guy driving over the bridge with no problems. A nerve-racking experience but we both sighed of relief when we got to the other side.
We jumped straight into the Jacuzzi once we were packed out and had a lovely relaxing afternoon. Late afternoon the next rain storm approached and it never stopped raining until the next morning. So the open braai outside was not an option anymore but the cottage is equipped with a fully furnished kitchen so we’ll just cook inside we thought…that was until the power went out during the lightning storm. Jumping ahead, even when we left on Monday morning the electricity was still out.
So there we were, rain pouring down outside, equipped with 2 gas lamps and a few candles.
It probably sounds terrible but quite the opposite. Lying on the couches in front of the fireplace, reading by candlelight with a glass of wine – not how we planned it but great none the less!
We eventually realised that the power was probably not going to be restored before the next day so this “boer maak toe ‘n plan”.
We borrowed a little gas burner from the owners on which we could cook potatoes and I decided to use the fire place as a braai…there is a first time for everything!
We had a lovely dinner and afterwards we couldn’t really care less that there was no electricity.
I must admit we were a bit disappointed when we woke up on Monday morning and still had no power. But we were determined to make breakfast and that’s what we did! Luckily the rain stopped and we could use the outside braai. With a few contraptions and a self-made ice bucket we had our champagne breakfast after all!
On our way back the river level was even higher than when we went there and I was sure that we wouldn’t be able to drive across. All packed-up but nowhere to go…
Some of the other guests arrived at the river and one of them simply drove past us, plunged his car into the water and drove across the bridge. I can’t decide if he was very courageous or simply an idiot…
Another car followed him and we decided to cross as well. Probably not the smartest thing I’ve done this year but we would probably still be stuck on the other side of the river if we didn't!
Despite all of this we had a wonderful time and our batteries are recharged again!
So let this be an inspiration to you - cooking with the right equipment is convenient but don’t let it stop you if you don’t have all the fancy kitchen tools! It is possible to cook up a feast if you only have the basics to work with…it’s just going to take a few extra glasses of wine!
Cheers!
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