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
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.
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.
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