Autumn

She arrived somewhere in the night.  Long misty fingers lingered in the vegetable garden and around the corners of the barn tracing the outline of things to come.  The day greeted us lazily with soft dappled light nursing our slumbering bodies into reality. We decided to celebrate her arrival and plotted our menu from the vegetable garden which in a grand gesture produced heaps of fresh basil, courgettes, salad and tomatoes.  The pumpkins peered from beneath their leafy coverage telling us that they needed some more time.  

Inspired by a month long cooking experience in the Klein Karoo we served freshly baked Ciabatta with homemade butter flavoured with roasted almonds and honey, salt baked beetroot with olive oil and cheese, deconstructed roasted vegetable salad with semi dried tomatoes, marinated lamb and pork chops and a fig and nut tart.

Cooking in the Karoo reminded us all of where firstly our roots come from and then the origins of our food history. Making butter is the easiest thing on earth. 

Try and source some unpasteurized butter from a local dairy and leave it outside of the fridge over night. In a mixer or even a hand held mixer whip a litre of cream until it starts to curdle and the fat solids separate from the buttermilk.

Remove the butter from the milk and gently massage in a bowl of ice water until all the liquid milk has been removed.

Flavour with 100g of roasted almonds and two table spoons of honey.  One can get really creative here and mix in any herbs, garlic or spice of your choice.  We loved the sweet soft crunchy texture on the warm ciabatta.

Bake beetroot on a layer of coarse salt that can cover it two thirds up in the oven at 180 degrees for about an hour and a half until they become soft to the touch.  The salt dehydrates the beetroot leaving a concentrated sweet beetroot flavour. Peel while still warm, slice and serve with olive oil, hard cheese, salt, pepper and fresh herbs.

Semi dried tomatoes.

Blanch tomatoes in boiling water for a minute and dunk into icy water peel slice and core the tomatoes marinate with olive oil and fresh herbs for an hour and gently dry in the oven at 150 degrees for about an hour and a half

Marinated Lamb and pork chops.

Use handsful of fresh herbs from the garden such as thyme, sage, rosemary or whatever you can lay your hands on, chop them roughly and add to half a cup of olive oil with crushed black pepper, salt and coriander seeds with a cup of thick greek yoghurt.  This is enough to marinade 8 lamb chops, cover them and work the marinade in with your hands by massaging the meat with your fingers.  Let it rest overnight or outside of the fridge for two hours if you are pressed for time.

Fig and nut tart:

 

Line a pastry tin with a roll of puff pastry, brush with egg white and bake for five minutes in a hot oven 220 degrees take out and cool down.

Filling: 

255g butter

255g castor sugar

285g ground almonds

55g cake flour

2 large eggs slightly beaten

vanilla paste

1 table spoon of grappa

 

Cream the butter and the sugar togehter and add the rest of the ingredients and mix well.  Spoon into the pastry casing and squeeze 5 figs sliced in half (10 halfs) into the mixture with the fleshy part exposed.  Drizzle with honey and bake in a 180 degree oven for about 40 min.  Serve with thick cream or vanilla ice cream