Cape Town by Mouth

Adding corn and bacon to soups seems to be my thing of the moment. Here we go again! Using prawn heads for a quick stock adds some great flavour (something I picked up from making Tom yum soup). This makes a great quick dinner or an elegant dinner party starter. Shouldn’t take more than 30 minutes to prepare.

seafood chowder

Serves 2:

1 onion
1 celery
2 strips of bacon
1 sweet potato
2 cobs of corn, kernels cut off
2 cups dry white wine (sav blanc works especially well)
4 cups/ 1 liter veg stock
8 prawns with heads, cut heads off (don’t through away) and deshell them.
pinch of chilli
1 tsp paprika
1 tbsp soy sauce
300g calamari
fresh parsley and chives

Sweat the onion, bacon and celery in a hot pan until just starting to brown. Add the sweetpotato and corn kernels and stir for five mins. Add the white wine and let it boil for five minutes. Add the stock and the prawn heads and boil for ten minutes.

Take out the prawn heads and bacon and discard them. Puree the soup with a handblender and press it through a fine sieve. Add the chilli, paprika and soy sauce and season to taste. You can prepare it to this point in advance.

When ready to serve, bring the soup to a boil and add the sliced calamari and prawns. Take off the heat (calamari goes rubbery if you keep it on). Let it sit for a few minutes and serve with fresh parsley and chives and some nice crusty bread.

Seafood chowder

seafood chowder

I was quite hesitant to visit planet for a bit of a stupid reason. The name. Maybe it is just me but having a restaurant called Planet in a five star hotel doesn’t make me think quality. I must admit that I am also not a fan of eating at hotels. Especially ones that are decorated with chandeliers and antique furniture.  The Mount Nelson however got me (and it seems many others) with their six course vegan menu.

elegant setting at Planet

We do a fair bit of vegan experimentation in our kitchen. Often it ends with me adding a bit of cheese to just “round” it up. Vegan food often has this earthy “thin” watery quality to it (and no I don’t meant that it makes you thin which it probably does as well). Planet is the second time (other one being Pure Food & Wine in New York- seriously recommended) that I had vegan food that actually tasted creamy and might I add spectacular.

Lentils, aubergines and cashew nuts at Planet

We started with lentils rolled into aubergine with cashew nut paste – earthy and satisfying. We continued with apple and parsnip soup and a mushroom risotto which would have been difficult to identify as vegan in a blind tasting. The main course was a bit disappointing. The components were tasty things like chickpea fritters, curry tempura mushrooms and toasted quinoa but they just didn’t quite work together (for us anyway). You get the feeling that they are trying to make up for a lack of meat with quantity. The desert was exceptional and more than made up for this. Rich velvety chocolate mousse with no eggs or cream. The wine pairing was exceptional with all dishes. We especially enjoyed the combination of De Grendel pinot gris with apple and parsnip soup.

chocolate mousse without eggs and cream at Planet

Main course at Planet

Planet just goes to prove how much you can do without animal related products. There seem to be at least two tricks. One is to puree some of the key vegetable finely. The mushroom risotto was made creamy with finely pureed mushrooms or so we were told. The other is that cashews and soy beans can elevate any dish. Try soaking cashew nuts for a couple of hours in warm water, whizzing them up, straining and using it as a milk substitute. In Malay cooking they sometimes add nut milk to a curry as a lighter substitute to coconut milk.

Service was attentive. Slightly nervous but clearly well trained. It is the type of place where they give you a little chair for your handbag and put a slit in the napkin so you can use it as a bib. That being said, the food could have used a bit more introducing.

It is hardly the type of place we will be going to regularly but we will be keen to revisit to see what new wonders Chef Liebenberg has created.

Mount Nelson Hotel
76 Orange Street
Gardens
+27214831000

www.planetbarandrestaurant.co.za

Dine under the stars

I would have never thought it but it is actually worth driving all the way to Stellenbosch for bread.

Tasty platter at De Oude Bank Bakkerij

Thick crust yet fluffy on the inside, this has got to be some of the best bread i have ever eaten. De Oude Bank Bakkerij is set in a courtyard like space between design shops and galleries. It has high ceilings with a rustic chic feel. I had huge lamp envy for the storm lanterns transformed into lamps that were hanging from the ceiling. To add to the funky vibe they play some nice breakfasty jazz.

The menu is short and simple. Buffalo yogurt and fruit, sour dough bread with scrambled eggs and bacon, daily changing hot sandwich and  platter of bread, cheese and preserves. You can also pick from the different types of breads and preserves and order them separately. We had the platter. The bread was out of this world. It was also the first time I tasted Lucas Jamon from the Karoo. Outstanding. The Huguenot cheese from Dalewood was lovely but otherwise the cheese was disappointing as it often is.  Apart from the unmature taste, the  cheese came individually wrapped airplane-style in foil and plastic. In a funky rustic place like this surely you could buy a proper wheel of brie and let it ripen?

Service slightly let the place down. The one waitress who seemed to be taking care of about 50 people was completely overwhelmed and we waited for 40 minutes to get our platter. I would still go back in a heartbeat just for another morsel of that bread.

7 Church Street

Stellenbosch.

Tel (021) 883-2187

individually wrapped cheese