Pontet Canet wines @ Soneva Fushi

It was a great day, we had a special wine dinner with wines from Pontet Canet, one of the most prestigious Bordeaux wines. We even have the owner, Melanie Tesseron, of the chateau here so we were in for a real treat.

I made a menu that matches the wonderful wines from the Chateaux, all red wines so there challenge was on. Especially for the dessert as it is really difficult to match a red Bordeaux with dessert. So I decided to go with Valrhona Fair trade chocolate. The chocolate comes in three ways, one flavored with rosemary, then one with orange and the last with pink pepper corns.

But let me start at the beginning of the dinner, some Champagne and home cured salmon, a dish that goes so well with Champagne. We did a little duo, one cured with citrus and the other with beetroot. Just a little salmon roe on top, and it was finish.

cured sustainable ocean trout

beetroot, orange, salmon roe, endive

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tortellini

peas, mushrooms, butternut, olive oil, truffle

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Grain-fed Bresse chicken

snails, sun-dried tomato, celeriac, herbs

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beef

potatoes, mushrooms, shallot, spinach, truffle jus

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goats cheese

smoked tomato, cream

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Valrhona fair-trade grand cru chocolate

rosemary, orange, pink peppercorn

Then we had tortellini, three kind all filled with a different filling, one with peas, one with mushroom and one with butternut. I love pasta and feel that even with a classical French menu we can sere a little pasta course. It is a very playful dish, quite labor intensive but beautiful to look at

Then we had the duo of Bresse chicken and snails. The chicken comes from the Bresse region, they are absolutely fantastic tasting chickens, slightly yellow in color from the feed which is corn. The breast is filled with sun-dried tomatoes and then rolled, the skin still on, then poached, cooled and pan fried just before serving. It goes beautifully well with the herbed snails and the red wine

Then the main course is a very traditional one, basically one could call it beef parmentier which means beef and potatoes.....just of course shooshed up a little.

The cheese course is a very important course on this menu, I decided to go for a twice cooked goats cheese souffle, even so it doesn't say on the menu, I like to keep some surprises up my sleeve. This is served with a slightly smoked tomato sauce and pesto, just a couple of drops as otherwise it will be too overpowering

The wines of course were out of this world. Pontet Canet is not just a Grand Crus Classe 1855, but it is the first and only bio-dynamic Grand Cru Classe in Bordeaux. I am not telling you how much one bottle costs, that you can find out for yourselves, but just to let you know the 2010 was awarded 100 Points by Parker, which means it is basically a perfect wine.

We had 6 different vintages, I mean to have one vintage is already a treat, but to be able to taste 6 different years, to see how different the wines are each year, knowing that they come from the same soil....is simply amazing. It is all depending on the weather, just amazing

Braised Veal Cheeks

They are cheeky little things, the veal cheeks (or one can take as well beef cheeks) Not too many attempt cooking them, maybe because they are cheeks?????

Anyway, everybody who had the pleasure in trying cheeks will love them forever. They need to be cooked slow and careful and for a very long time as it is a muscle that is used a lot.....literally, but therefore it is a lot more flavourful than, lets say a fillet or sirloin.

I just love the cuts which have to be cooked slowly and for a long time, they just develop such a beautiful flavour, they get tender, are tasty and even on warmer days they are nice to eat. Apart from that they are the perfect party food as they can easily be cooked a couple of days in advance and then just need to be re-heated, cheeky!!!

And I thought after all the starters and sweets, it is about time to have some nice hearty main course. The combination with the Gnocchi goes really well, just make sure the potatoes are really soft and then dried in the oven for about 10 minutes at 100 o C. To get the best result the flour must be mixed in while the potatoes are still hot .

As for braising the cheeks, I am a bit cheeky too and give approximate weights or just ingredients, I don't believe in exact amounts for braising, sometimes one needs a bit more liquid, sometimes a bit less, just never be stingy!

• Veal Cheeks
• Oil
• Onions
• Carrots
• Celeriac
• Tomato paste
• Red wine
• Veal stock or jus
• Pepper corns, bay leaf, 1 clove, rosemary
• Salt (very little as the sauce will reduce and flavor will intensify

trim and braise beef cheek in red wine and veal stock cook till tender reserve stock to make sauce…make gnocchi …roast celeriac peel and roast carrots peel and roast shallots….pick spinach…

Gnocchi
1 kg of cooked mashed desire potato
300gm flour
Seasoning

Gently fold the ingredients together to form soft dough
IT IS IMPORTANT NOT TO DEVELOP THE GLUTEN IN THE FLOUR OR THE GNOCCHI WILL BE TOUGH.
Blanch in boiling salted water until they float, Then refresh in ice water.

Then you need the following vegetables, but feel free to swap and change (root veggies are good so for this dish)

• Baby Carrots
• Celeriac
• Spinach
• Shallots

To Serve reheat cheek in some of reserved liquid…pan fry gnocchi adding finely chiffonnade sage heat shalots carrots and roast celeriac sautéed spinach slice cheek into 3 pieces construct dish and sauce liberally….

Now if you like to know exactly how to braise properly, watch this space I as I will over time part with some chef tricks....no short cuts so, that I am not fond of short cuts

And then of course.....enjoy the meal, best with friends and maybe a nice bottle of Brunello, especially the Castello Banfi Brunello di Montalcino...just drink it with good friends, it is not the cheapest wine available, but man, it is gooooooooood!

Cape Winelands for Kids

There is so much to do while in the beautiful Cape. I went with friends on a special outing for the kids. Sometimes they need a little treat too and if the weather is nice it is worthwhile to have a little drive out towards Stellenbosch. There is a wine estate called Eaglevlei and for everybody who wants a little bit of gourmet food and have the kids happy at the same time, this is the place to go.

The main attraction for the kids is the huge jungle gym. The gym is so big that even with 30 or 40 kids it is still not overly full. There are always other kids so they will have a guaranteed good time.

The kids menu is great, little smiley faces as fries, small hot dogs and hamburgers, just what one needs to get them going. And then as a dessert a little treat, a marshmallow ice cream with sweets in it and some crumbles, great idea.

The menu for the grownups is fantastic too, but careful, the portions are huge. We had a Biltong (South African Beef Jerky) plate with is a little pie, a soup, an ice cream and a bit roasted game. It was under the starter section, but could have easily gone through as a main course. Then as a main course we had the oxtail poijie, a wonderfully tender oxtail stew served in an iron pot and I had the Pork belly, huge, huge, huge, but really nice. The novelty there was that instead of an apple sauce they served it with an apple sour ice cream which actually went very well with the rich pork belly.
Dessert then was....we still had a brulee Amarula cheese cake, again very nice with a light coffee ice cream but heavy. The espresso is Illy, so top quality and just what we needed to end of a lovely lunch.
The wine of is from the estate itself, we opted for the Viognier, 2009, a lovely wine, light but with enough body to it.

The kids.... ah yes they had so much fun, there were a couple of puddles so you can imagine how they looked like. They made plenty of friends and had just a wonderful time

Greek Wine

I love wine, I love tasting new wines and I love tasting unusual and local varieties, even if it is not always the greatest wine. Being in Greece I just have to taste the local wines, so I went out in Rhodes to one of the bigger estates to try the local delicacies.......not all of them bowled me over I have to admit. In Greece the white wine production is bigger than the red wine and generally I prefer the whites here. Even most of the reds tasted are rather light bodied and often served chilled like a white wine.

I think the most well known wine is the Retsina. Here in Rhodes it is made from the local grape variety Athiri and then Pine resin is added during the fermentation. This has been done since 2000 years. It is amazing just the smell in the glass is overpowering with Pine and Eucalyptus flavours. It is a flavour one has to get used to, if one really wants of course. I just had to get a bottle to take home and for 3 Euro one can't complain.

Then of course they make a lot of sweet wines, red and white. I am a sucker for sweet wines, especially noble late harvests and botrytis infected wines, but here they were just sweet, a little one dimensional. I guess I have to try the VinSanto on Santorini, they are well known for that.

I was able to join a tour of Rhodes and part of the tour was the tasting. Yes I liked the historic part of the tour, the palace of the knights, the fortified walls, the history, but to be honest, this time I joined more for the wine tasting than anything else.....and the tasting was not what I expected. We went to a big Coop named Cair and two big tour buses just left the tasting area, so I knew that there wouldn't be an in depth tasting, but what we received was more a "why do you bother us" attitude, the wine was poured so fast that we struggled to taste a wine before the glass was re-filled with the next wine (I guess one could literally call it a blend!)

But somehow I could make out what I drunk and then after the lady behind the counter poured 8 wines in a time frame of 5 minutes she walked away to be ready for us to storm to her other counter and buy wine......yes right. So we could take a bit more time to taste the wines, read the labels and make up our own story where the wine was grown, and, and, and.

Oh, by the way, the six bottles in the photo are now in my suitcase and will come with me to South Africa.....no idea if they will arrive the way I hope they will, but that is just me!!! I will be hopelessly overweight and will have to schmooze again big time at the airport to get them all through. OK, the seaman's book helps, I can travel with 40 kg, but still till the moment the suit cases are checked in I will be a tiny bit nervous.....OK, a bit more than a tiny bit.

Istanbul

Wow, what a buzzing city, over 12 Million people living here, it is just fantastic. I have just arrived this morning at the harbour and can see the Hagia Sofia and behind the blue mosque. So there is quite a bit on the program, but what I really want to do is popping into the spice market which is not too far from the ship. On the way there I was lucky to find a small fish market which we will hit in two weeks when we are back in Istanbul. There was lovely fresh mackerel, sea bream and salmon trout.

The spice market is just fantastic but there is not just spices, no there is cheese, meats, loads of different sweets and plenty shops selling fake sun glasses and branded clothing.

The one thing I was looking for was saffron.......I did find but the quality is very poor, so if you ever in Istanbul do NOT buy any saffron. There is as well "Indian Saffron" it is just simply curcuma and curry powder. But then there are all the lovely smells, the chillies, the fenugrek, then the dates, apricots, halva, Turkish delight in all forms and variations, one could spend hours in there. Next time I will get some good for a Turkish high tea, sweet! The smell on the market is wonderful and makes me hungry, especially the Asian spices are great.

The dates are absolutely amazing, the size already and the taste, unbelievable. There are several varieties, all of them are really nice and sweet.