Free State Oxtail Potjie

 

There's a saying doing its rounds in South Africa stating:, "Wat is 'n vrou wat kan braai? Sy is kwaad" resulting from the typical behaviour of men at a South African braai who are drinking a lot of beer and just keeps on adding wood to the fire.  I would like to rectify this, "Wat is 'n vrou wat kan braai? Sy is 'n Vrystater"

Born and bred in the Free State with all the cattle and sheep farms surrounding us, we have a special love for meat. You can keep your "Meat free Mondays" or "Meat free May", thank you very much!

Winter is approaching and with the cooler weather we love to make our Bloemfontein Oxail Potjie.

The first time we made this potjie was about 12 years ago, in the middle of the winter in a very cold Bloemfontein. We drank alot of red wine and the pot were only ready at 11pm that evening. We froze our butts off in the cold Free Sate air that night, but we were younger and more interested in drinking wine.

Clearly from the pictures you can see, it was a party and only the wine mattered......

Now at almost 40 I must say, I am too old for that shit. So we start our oxtail pot really early so that it can be ready by 6pm. The wine still matters but we're unfortanetly to old to party -"like it's 1999" - because a hangover now lasts a week.

So here you go, the recipe for the Bloemfontein Oxtail potjie..... You're welcome ;)

1. Take fresh beef oxtail, (the quantity depends on the size of potjie that you are making, we usually use 12 oxtail pieces for our Size 3 potjie) dunk it in some flour and brown it on the stove in olive oil whilst you are frying celery, carrots, onion and garlic in your potjie.

2. Remove the celery mix and add your oxtails to the potjie and brown it in the potjie for another 5 minutes. Return the celery mix, add 2 cups of lamb stock and a cup of red wine, (and please don't use shitty red wine in food, if you won't drink it, we also don't want to eat it), simmer this for about 4 hours on a constant medium heat.

3. After four hours and copious amounts of red wine (well, copious is a relative description depending on your age, HA HA), add a packet of rich oxtail soup and a cup of coca-cola.  Simmer for another 3 hours.  In the last hour add baby potatoes (halved) and simmer for the last hour.

4. Serve with rice and some spring onion as garnish and ENJOY!

Jy gaan jou vingers af lek - you can thank me later ;)

Review: Dinner @ Capeesh! Capeesh?

REVIEW: DINNER @ CAPEESH!

Let me start with a little story first, before reviewing this awesome restaurant.  I've been a patron of this restaurant since 2010.  So when me and the fiance started dating I decided on sharing this experience with him. 

 

I clearly remember it being May 2012, a Tuesday night, just before we were to go away for the weekend to Parys, I asked him to dinner at this nice Italian restaurant. And it being "Half price Pasta Evening" was just an extra bonus!

 

We were busy having a lovely dinner, chatting away about our past (we were both married before), the present (how lucky we were to have met each other) and the future! What a shock it was on my poor digestion when this handsome man across the table form me told me that he liked me BUT that he was not in love with me! Oh my goodness, I wanted to choke on the delicious piece of steak in my mouth, but decided to rather finish the whole bottle of wine in front of me!

 

But let me tell you this, that Friday evening after that terrible Tuesday, we were in Parys and with the fire going and the red wine flowing, this man watched me with longing eyes while I was preparing our pasta.  And it gave me quite a kick to tease him with soft kisses and to quote myself my reaction was: "You won't get lucky tonight Hun, because you're not in love with me"!

 

And as a matter of fact he lied to himself and me that Tuesday night, the handsome bugger, because today we are planning our wedding!!!!  And every time he looks into my eyes I can see and feel the love!

 

Okay now on to the review.

 

Capeesh is a family orientated Italian restaurant (it being in the same family for some decades) situated in Brooklyn, Pretoria, South Africa. 

 

The ambiance is relaxed, romantic and upper class.

 

The quality of service and dishes is of a high standard. From the carne dishes (beef), pizza, pasta right through to the pesce dishes (fish) you can expect a delightful, tasty and innovative range to choose from off their menu.

 

They also won the Platinum award for wine list of the year 2011.  A wide range of wines are always available at this restaurant, from Vrede and Lust to Rupert and Rothschild (I can vouch that you don't get these wines easily at any restaurant)

 

 

And the best thing about this restaurant for us: It is not a cheesy franchise, it is unique and you're always treated like family! A nice personal touch!

 

Do yourself a favour, doesn't matter if you're a local or a tourist coming to South Africa, go and have a meal at this restaurant! You won't be disappointed.

 

 



Camembert and Cranberry Fillet

Camembert and Cranberry Fillet

For my company's year-end lunch we went to one of those Medieval restaurants where you have to eat potatoes and fish balls with your hands. You don't get napkins and if your fingers get dirty you HAVE to ask the person next to you to lick your fingers. Fuck, what an ordeal.

I needed something to balance this out or Friday would be nothing but a big suck-fest. Luckily my fiance (or m'lady in shining armor) rescued me from my Medieval nightmare. She bought the best beef fillet she could find along with some Camembert Cheese and Cranberry sauce.

Ingredients:
Beef Fillet (size = depending on how shitty your lunch was)
Camembert Cheese
Woolworths Cranberry sauce with crushed berries
Crushed Garlic
Salt flakes
Olive Oil
Red Wine
Balsamic
Sugar
A Spring of Parsley
A Small Spring of Thyme
A Small Spring of Rosemary
A Spring of Coriander
Onions

Prepare the beef fillet by rubbing some olive oil, crushed garlic and salt flakes on the meat. Let it stand for a while.

After the fillet stood for a while, cut slits into the side of the fillet to create a cavity in the side of the fillet. Fill the cavity with Camembert Cheese and finely chopped parsley, thyme, rosemary and coriander. To ensure that the filling don't spill out when you cook it, tie some string around the fillet or if you don't have string, you can use toothpicks to keep the fillet together.

Put the fillet aside for time being, it is now time for the Cranberry sauce with Red Wine.

Heat some olive oil in a pan. Fry the onions until translucent and soft. Stir two teaspoons of sugar into the onions. The sugar will caramelize the onions.

Now stir in the Cranberry sauce and a dash of red wine. Cook for 5 minutes while stirring continuously.

Add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, turn down the heat and let it simmer for 10 - 15 minutes. If the sauce gets to thick, you can add some water to dilute the sauce.

While the sauce is simmering you can start cooking the steaks. Cook them which ever way you prefer your steak - Charcoal, medium or bloody as hell.

Once the steak and the sauce is done, it's time to dish up! Pour some of the Cranberry sauce over your steaks and enjoy with a side dish of your choice. You can go for rice, mash or a nice salad.

 

Friday - rescued!

Magical Muratie

A Rainy Sunday Afternoon at Muratie Wine Farm

Unique.  That is the first thought that comes to mind when you enter this small wine farm a few kilometres away from Delheim Wine farm.

When you enter this farms tasting room your eyes meet so many interesting features, that for a little while you almost forget that you are actually here to taste some wine.  From the dog that just lays in front of the entrance to the interesting paintings and vintage wine press.  This was definitely a feast on the eyes!  See for yourself.

We sat down near the fire place and the web covered window, tasting some of the most exquisite wines and ports.

If you are lucky you can get some of it in a booze shop, but overall they are rare.  We enjoyed it so much at Muratie that we spent almost whole of the afternoon there getting totally sloshed.  That was fun.  Luckily there weren't any pork chops (a.k.a. traffic cops) on our way home.

The service was very good and this wine farm is a MUST see for anyone who deems themselves a wine connoisseur.

for more information see www.muratie.co.za

Lavender and Thyme Chicken with red wine sauce

When I heard about mixing red wine with chicken I was intrigued, usually the experts will only recommend white wine with chicken, and so we decided to take up this experiment.

Ingredients:
4 portions skinless deboned chicken breasts
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon cold pressed extra virgin olive oil
(get the good shit, not the cheap crap my boyfriend has in his pantry)
8 shallots (that is now the fancy pancy word for small onions)
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup of red wine
(go for the decent bottle in your wine rack, it's only one cup, you can have the rest while making this awesome dish)
1 cup of chicken stock
4 twiglets thyme
2 tsp lavender flowers
shredded skin and juice of 1 orange
salt and pepper to taste

Garnishing the chicken you will need the following:
1 orange, peeled and divided into sections
A few lavender sprigs
4 tsp lavender flowers

So now the experiment can begin, I must say besides being intrigued I was also sceptic.  But me and the boyfriend is one mean team and we were sure that we will pull this off successfully.

The Method:
Heat the butter and "good shit olive oil" in a pan, once heated, add the chicken breasts.
Fry the breasts until they are brown (fondle the breasts of your girlfriend while waiting for the chicken, see that is why a man is handy in the kitchen).
Once the chicken is done, move it to a ceramic bowl.
Fry the shallots in the pan until golden brown and soft.
Add the shallots to the chicken in the bowl.
Add the flour to the pan, cooking whilst stirring continuously.
Add enough red wine and chicken stock to the pan to create a thin sauce.
Bring to boiling point whilst stirring continuously.
Add salt and pepper to taste.
Stir in the following:
Thyme twiglets
Lavender Sprigs
And the shredded orange skin and juice.
Pour this combo over the chicken and shallots in the bowl.
Cover and simmer for 40 minutes and Bob's your uncle.

Dish up and garnish the chicken artistically with the orange sections, lavender sprigs and lavender flowers.

You can basically serve this dish with any starch, in retrospect I think cous cous would have been a big hit, but we went with baby potatoes, see the boyfriend just LOVE potatoes, so I had to repay the favor mentioned earlier in this blog :)

And now you can take the word of two self taught amateur cooks that red wine does go with chicken.