Try Cooking in the Bush

Since we only visited one game lodge in South Africa I was exposed to a limited range of food, but we had some really fantastic things. I ate some super cool meat, like Kudu- that crazy looking animal to the right! A koeksister is their thicker, more rich version of a donut. It's typically described as a syrup soaked fritter. The best part about the food though was getting to cook it. I tried to find my way into the kitchen the second I arrived because I figured I could learn something new. It turned out to be a near impossible task to join the kitchen for a day so I tried introducing myself and my "charm" to every single staff member who had access to the kitchen. I guess I just didn't lay it on thick enough- it was turning out to be a rather political process, so I let the idea go. But there was hope after all!

I could still get my hands dirty at a "Bush Breakfast." These are the most beautiful little breakfasts in a picnic area out in the bush where your guide whips up some bacon and eggs on a cast iron over a homemade fire. Bingo! The second our guide Donald asked us if we wanted to do one of these I offered to take the cooking job off his hands. The poor guy ended up with long lists of mise en place he needed to present to the kitchen staff to pack into our bush breakfast kit. Those green lime looking things in that picture are lemons grown on the property!

The first day was lemon walnut ricotta pancakes, a recipe similar to the ones we serve at work which my am cook roommate was kind enough to give me. They didn't have ricotta, so I used mascarpone one day and cream cheese another and they turned out equally delicious.

Lemon Walnut Ricotta Pancakes

38 oz all purpose flour

7 oz sugar

2 tbl baking powder

2 tbl baking soda

Mix dry ingredients

8 eggs separated

3 cups buttermilk (which was like cottage cheese in SA...I asked the chef twice if that was normal)

5 lemons juice and zest

1 cup ricotta (or any substitute you can get your hands on in the bush)

1/2 cup toasted walnuts

Add the yolks, buttermilk, lemon and zest, ricotta and walnuts to the mixture

Beat the whites and fold them in

Make pancakes!

These were on the menu twice, once on the first day and another for Grandma's birthday- hence the dress. By far the least practical outfit for cooking over open flames in the dirt.

Another wonderful breakfast was french toast with cinnamon whip cream. The guides told me they eat their french toast with "tomato sauce," so I made them a savory french toast stuffed with ham and cheddar. The only hiccup in the french toast was the bread. The kitchen must have thought I was nuts for requesting old bread- but it's the key to good french toast. Historically, the French dish Pain Perdu, which literally translates into "lost bread," was used to consume stale and old bread. Stale bread soaks up the most liquid and flavor, but we ended up with the freshest of fresh bread. I don't blame them. I wouldn't give my guests old bread either!

At some point, bush breakfasts turned into bush lunches.

Len, our fantastic guide and family friend, claims that you can't get a good caesar salad anywhere outside of the states. That was an understatement. The "caesar" was horrific. He asked me to make him an authentic caesar and I happily obliged.

Caesar dressing in the bush? I've never had so much fun cooking! We even made garlic croutons.

Donny made sandwiches that he said were pretty typical food for a bbq in South Africa.

They were simple and delicious.

First, he sauteed onions, buttered thick slices of brioche-like bread and put slices of tomato and cheddar cheese inside. Then, he toasted them in a grill basket over the fire until they were melty and had beautiful golden grill marks on them.

croutons for the caesar and almond stuffed dates wrapped in bacon

Donald also introduced me to two drinks. Amarula is a delicious milky liquor that is similar to Baileys. It's incredible and it's the only thing that allowed me to cope with the beating my Grandma gave me in Gin Rummy every night. There's supposedly a place in Basalt that carries it and I'm actually headed down there today to get some! It comes from the fermented fruit of the Marula tree which elephants love. Yes, my guide showed me how to dig through elephant poop to get to this nut. And yes, I did eat it after foraging through dung to get it.

The second drink is called a Soweto Bomb. It's some combination of dark beer, something brown and is drank similar to any jager bomb or o-bomb. He said he drank a good handful or two of these during his college years. I pounded one down and looked over at Donny...his face looked like he'd seen a ghost. Maybe a little too rough? I thought I'd introduce him to my drink of demise in college- The lemon drop which is a little lighter on the palate.

There was an unspoken agreement over breakfast to never mix these two drinks again.

Finally...The wine! I never made it to wine country, but I sure had access to some phenomenal bottles. Len was kind enough to write down all of the wines I enjoyed, excuse the missing dates. Take a look- I've been trying to find similar ones at the local Of Grape and Grain with little to no success.

Whites

Mulderbosch Sauvignon Blanc

Waterford Sauvignon Blanc

Zonneblom Sauvignon Blanc

Jordan Chameleon

Reds

Alto Rouge

Beyerskloof Pinotage

Waterford Cabernet Sauvignon

Rupert and Rothschild Classique

Raka Quinnery

Oh- and I made it into the kitchen on the second to last day to make my Grandma surprise birthday dessert. The Citrus Cheesecake with Candied Walnuts and Coffee Panna

Cotta with an Almond Coconut Tuile took a considerable amount of research given my situation. I actually brought Jean-Francois Piege's At The Crillon and at Home book with me on a game drive to get some ideas flowing. If you've ever seen or held that book, you know how ridiculous that is. Once I got in there, the kitchen staff was incredibly accommodating. I can't even describe how nice they were to me. When I came in they suited me up in an apron and hat and asked me for a list of what I needed. Petro, who seemed to have been the operating executive chef and I wandered around the coolers and storage for a good while until I came out with a box full of mise. Petro is a cool guy. While I was cooking down a fruit syrup we chatted about how he ended up doing what he doing. This was his first job out of school- ever! He

really wants to be an engineer and work on train and railway systems, but he is working now to save up enough money to go back to engineering school. He likes cooking enough and says he only cooks for his wife when she's mad at him. Ha. Anyways, I should have thought the plan through a little harder. There wasn't going to be a silpat anywhere within 37848731 miles. Tuiles are difficult without those, but we made it work with heavily buttered parchment. Equipment is a little different and by a little I mean WORLDS apart. Sure, there's an oven. But the dial

represents no real value. There's zero difference between 100 and 600 degrees. That sure made cheesecake and tuiles fun. Thank god I chose panna cotta for the second option. For some reason the burners are positioned so that you actually place a pan into the flame of the burner, not above it. I learned the hard way that things burn pretty quickly when resting inside a flame. I was surprised to see thatt their kitchen has the same Robot Coup that our kitchen does but Chinois don't exist. We made fine strainers out of coffee filters.

Conversions. Why didn't I think about conversions? Once I was in the kitchen, there was no turning back. I couldn't exactly google the conversion factors. The guessing game began. This only became evident when the panna cotta only set-ish. It all turned out wonderfully the next day. Grandma was impressed and that's all that mattered.

Also- either buy this book or read this blog!

Mint Gnocci

Every night my station is responsible for making dinner for the security guards who work the graveyard shift. Typically, I am told to look in the coolers and see what needs to move. Subsequently, the poor guys are subjected to whatever culinary misadventure I've gotten myself into. But on super slow days like Monday and Tuesday, I make it my mission to learn something new. Luckily on slow days, I have the salaried, incredibly talented chefs hanging around that I get to squeeze for information. I've officially been limited to 2,000 questions -20 per topic per day.

Monday's lesson was in lasagna but only because I was itching to make pasta dough and had to come up with something I haven't done yet to justify the dough. Monday's homework was more up my alley. I was told to research gnocci because tomorrow we were going to make perfect gnocci and I had the pasta guru himself to steer the boat.

I came to work ready. I thought about the produce cooler and what we had too much of and what was on it's way out. Mint and peas. I thought about what pairs with mint and peas. Lamb! The overnight security guards were in for a treat- Mint Gnocci with Spring Peas, Milk Braised Lamb and Preserved Lemon.

Step One:

Roast your potatoes and

go to Rendezvous Farm and pick a bunch of mint!What awesome produce we get to work with!

Step Two:

Wait for your potatoes to cool, rice them and

blanch the mint. You can keep the stems as long as you run your knife through it enough so they don't get caught in the blender blades.

Step Three:

This laying hen at the farm is actually called "the bitch" for the terror she inflicts on who ever comes and steals her eggs. It takes one of her eggs per potato you use to get the right consistency. Harvesting an egg from her really teaches you appreciation for every egg that comes into the kitchen.

Blend the eggs and the mint.

Step Four:

Incorporate the puree into the potato and sift flour over the mixture.

The key to good gnocci is to not overwork the dough because the gluten will develop leaving you with a chewy dumpling. I tested this theory by kneading one dough a good amount and not kneading the other at all. The consensus was that the no-knead gnocci was the best.

Step Five:

Form little rolls of dough, cut them, and then roll them over a gnocci board or a fork.

Done!

Although, I didn't stop there. I made gnocchetti with the over-kneaded dough. We made gnocchetti the Frasca way- one of the guys recently staged there and picked up this trick.

The gnocchettis look like peas. How cool does that look with actual peas?!

I LOVE MY JOB!

Oh, and some lasagna pics.

The Life of a Rabbit

The Beginning

Things started out well for them...or so it seemed. Chef was itching to show me how to break down rabbit and I just sharpened my knife.

We needed all of the meaty parts of the rabbit to braise for the pasta filling, but Chef said he knew a cool way to use their ribs...
...for dinner!

Now that's what I call family meal on a Monday night. Apparently TK uses the individual chops for amuse sometimes? They were insanely good.

Rabbit Galantine

Mondays turn into Shannon's personal culinary school and today Chef was teaching galantine. It is a traditional french preparation of a boned piece of meat, usually chicken. We didn't follow tradition very closely because instead of the skin of the animal to wrap the galatine, we used sliced prosciutto. The forcemeat (what's being spread out in the picture above) is made up of a panada, black truffles, pistachios, ground rabbit bellies and chicken breast thats been marinaded in madiera.

Panada Mix- 2 eggs, 3 tablespoons of brandy, 1 teaspoon of pate spice, 3 oz of flour and 1 tablespoon of salt. Then 8 oz of heavy cream is tempered in.

The plastic underneath assists in shaping the galantine. A rabbit loin has been laid down in the middle.

Once wrapped in cheesecloth, they were poached in hot- not boiling- chicken stock for roughly 35 minutes or until the internal temperature was about 160 degrees. Then we let them cool in the liquid overnight.

Final product- Beautiful amuse for the weekend. Rabbit galantine with celery, mint, citrus and cornichon salad.

The Making of Rabbit Agnolotti

Let the braising begin!

First, we got a hard sear on the legs.

Then they get braised all day with a little mirepoix, white wine, and chicken stock.

After the braise, the rabbit meat is picked for the pasta filling and the juices are reserved to mix in later.

The Chips

You'll see in the final picture that the agnolotti dish is finished with carrot chips- not as simple as it sounds. Above are super thin carrots shaved on a mandolin.

The shaved carrots are blanched in a thyme and rosemary infused simple syrup.

Then they are laid on an oiled silpat, covered with another silpat and baked overnight on the lowest temperature possible.

The Pasta

The pasta begins on my farm with the most beautiful eggs in the world.

90 of them, along with 4 lbs of all purpose flour make the pasta dough.

...and a whole lot of kneading!

Then over to the Emilio-miti pasta machine to sheet out some pasta!

There's that braised rabbit filling! It's been mixed with orange zest, the reserved rabbit jus, ricotta cheese, and basil.

Little pinches are made along the filling to form the tiny pillows of deliciousness.

By cutting them with a flick of the pasta cutter, the dough pinches together and the pillows form pockets that will carry the sauce.

Perfect little agnolotti!

This is the beginning of the pasta sauce.

We start by searing the morel mushrooms, add butter, chicken stock and a chiffonade of preserved lemon. The sauce is finished with fava beans, mint, carrot chips and shaved parmesan.

And that is rabbit agnolotti!

Who knew a bunny was so versatile?

The rabbits made their way into three stunning dishes at work, not a single part was wasted. Awesome!