We had the wonderful pleasure of having Margot Janse, the multi-Award winning chef from Le Quartier Francais at our cooking demo class in Franschhoek! We were welcomed by Lisa Visser, Margot’s assistant on the way to the owner, Susan’s beautiful kitchen and whereupon we had a lovely cup of coffee.
We had Rob from Haut Espoir meaning High Hopes, a wine farm in Franschhoek. It was a delight to have tasted his family’s wine. A Semillon and a Chardonnay. His family’s farm has over 170 buchus. It’s a dried herb and this we have been told is also good for reducing weight and even cystitis. Even buchu soaked in brandy came out thumbs with our small group of eight. Strong flavour. You get the feeling of warmness running down your throat with just a tiny sip. Great for winter months.
The menu: A Wonderbag spinach and buchu samp, seared salmon trout with biltong vinaigrette. All fresh produce locally sourced. The pea's skin was peeled. All these previously done before our arrival. Crunchy flavour, different texture trout fried in olive oil but seasoned at the end with salt. Not being South African, it was our first time to try samp, which has been soaked overnight in the Wonderbag - buchu has been grounded. Samp – dried and soaked corn, salt was from the Kalahari in Namibia. Biltong from Neil in Bread & Wine. So soft and tender. Spinach, bright green colour retained with the ice and water and the plum tomatoes, with its skin peeled off.
An effort well worth waiting for after an hour and a half! Highly recommended and can wait to go again next year. Thank you Margot and Lisa.
