PIGS CAN FLY- AN URBAN CHRISTMAS FEAST PART 3

So our pig circus draws to a close with this, the finale blog, which is in video form. Please check it out.

                                               
                                                Click on the pic to see the video blog

What a challenging and educational experience it has been, to follow a project like this though. Just about every angle we chose offered a new experience. In fact, I remember the day before the feast, when seasoned Chef Stef and I had been cooking non stop for a good while, when Stef said something to the effect of, ‘Just about everything that I have made in the last two days, I have done for the first time’. Basically we put ourselves way out of our comfort zones. We could never have pulled this event off, without expert help form Martin Raubenheimer from Cured, who sausage was as good as it gets, his smoked bones, which we made our pea soup were ridiculously delicious (we gouged ourselves in the kitchen on these flavor bombs) and his gammon was the finest I have tasted. Then there was Andre Cole and Debora, who gave up a day and night in their busy schedules to help us, Andrew you are a brilliant and loving chef, your gammon poached in coke was sublime. Then there were the usual suspects, Harry and Stef. Harry, I’m bummed your Concita soap is now finished; you just can’t buy soap like that anymore. Stef, was the foundation of all that was food for this event. Stef, without a doubt your tripe was the best I have eaten and your Vietnamese Rice Paper Rolls, I could live on alone, pity our black pudding failed. Stef, you are THE MAN. A special thanks to our paying guest Pieter Joubert, who took control of the Pigs Eyes (a blue berry set in limoncello jelly) and in doing so, upped the anti. He also made the candles, and took over the Mince Pie Department when I lost my sense of humor – shot Pete

The Setting                                                                               Mans

On the video side, a massive thanks needs to go to Robin, Salama, but mostly Lucy, who bust a gut to get this vlog out. Also, thanks to Mans for the fine stills photos and to Moose for the loan of his fancy camera gear.

Those alone I could live on                                       Mans

A Smoked Bone and Pea Soup, with kitsch presentation Mans

Curried Tripe and Trotters - yum I want more             Mans

Sublime Gammon                                                          Mans

Thanks to The Thabang Cultural Dancers, who were guests of Andre's for the weekend. They performed heart and a delightful energy for only a only pork sausage rolls. Thank you. Once again thanks to Celeste for her performance, she is the ultimate pro. 

A beautiful Thabang Cultural Dancer       Man 

Last but not least, thank you Andre’ for making your venue available (clearing it out and painting it took weeks of work), for you amazing art and décor, your guidance and finally for Concita, who I know had a wonderful life while she was with us. She was without a doubt the star of the show.

Mince Pies made with Concita lard                            Mans

THE WITELS

Looking back towards Cape Town from Waaihoek. You can make out Table Mountain.                  Ian Ian

The Witels is a 5-day self-support kloofing/canyoning trip. It’s a place where magic seems to happen.

The team - Chris, Alec, Skip, Dave, Jay, Laura, me.              Ian Ian

This was only my 4^th trip down this river and in that time I have noticed that the place can have profound influences on peoples lives. For my friends and mentors Alec (The Vegetarian Hunter) and Poly Moly (The Roti World Champion) both mentioned in previous blogs, this is a reference point for them, their measure of time. Both blokes are sixty and have over 50 Witels trips between them. Surely the annual promise of the place helps keep them bouncing about like spring chickens. It simply has to. Then there is my perhaps dearest friend Moose, (who is instrumental in The Urban Hunter Gatherer video blogs) who decided it was time to have offspring, while on the Witels. His delightful boy Mathew, is now my Godson

Too much fun to be had to care about cooking      Ian Ian

Oh yes! The food part of the blog. On trips like this people either cater for themselves or maybe team up with another member of the party, so it’s a kinda ‘each man for themselves’ thingy. Laura and I paired up on the chow front. We threw a list together and split the buying load. True to form we didn’t really think things through too well and ended up with a MOUNTAIN of food that we had to carry up the MOUNTAIN. On the first night our enthusiasm for good food was bubbling over. We made pasta with dried porcini mushrooms (left over from autumn foraging missions), delicious dehydrated olives Alek’s wife Gill had processed and given to me, chorizo and sun dried tomatoes, all finished off with a little parmigiano. Ian Ian and Laura snapped away with their cameras knowing I was going to do a blog. Well, that was pretty much the last time any major interest in food took place on the trip, apart from jamming our faces full of whatever was easiest to get to in our bags, so as to reduce the weight of our packs. All those dream images of frying freshly caught brown trout, never remotely came to be; I mean how could they, when you don’t even unsleave your fly fishing rod that you bought? You see, this trip was not about food, but about the greatest amount of fun that a person could ever have. Laura, Ian Ian and I for various reasons, aptly became known as the delinquent bunch. We were the last to leave camp and very definitely the last to arrive at the next.

Plenty of boulder hopping.                                                          Ian Ian

I have these endearing images of looking back and seeing the hugest smiles plastered on the faces of Laura and Ian Ian. I mean, was it possible to have even more fun than we were having? I think not… I can’t remember when last my happiness levels were last peaking as much as on this trip

The Delinquents              Ian Ian

A final word on food, but only coz itz a food blog. Our last meal, lunch on the final day, was chunks of torn cheese on chunks of torn bread (we were too lazy to even get the pen knife out of our packs.) This Neanderthal meal tasted every bit as good as our big effort first night meal. It just goes to show, that sometimes it’s not about food.

May the magic of the Witels carry into our everyday lives.

Awesome Awesome Awesome                                                                                                                Ian Ian

It gets pretty chilly                                Ian Ian

Make a chow, get it in and go have even more fun.                 Ian Ian

Just another waterfall                                                                            Ian Ian

The Hunter Gatherer resisted temptation     Ian Ian

The Lovely Laura squealing her way down a rapid. Ian Ian

Thank you Alecs, for allowing the delinquents on your trip. You are a very fine leader.

HONEY, BEEZ, YOGHURT AND BAKLAVA

Baklava and Yoghurt, them Greeks know a thing or two about a chow                                                                 Mans

Every now and then all roads do seem to lead to Rome. In this case, they all lead to Baklava.

Vortex (Voytek)                                                       Mans

For years I have been getting my honey from me mate’ Vortex (Voytek). Short of character, Vortex is not. He has a long and impressive list of daring and gnarly achievements, which include climbing a number of the longest vertical rock walls on the planet and a whole bunch of other radical stuff too.  He also supplies me with the best honey around. Mans and I asked Vortex if we could take some pics of him and his hives. On the set day, Vortex arrived, not only with his usual massive package of character, but he also brought a large pot of homemade yogurt with him (perhaps one day his method of making yoghurt will appear on this blog. Who knows?) Anyhoo, it seemed only natural that I should make something with both honey and yoghurt. For a start, you can’t possibly go wrong with that combo and throw a few nuts into the mix and you are laughing mate. For a while I have wanted to learn to use phyllo pastry, and so it came to be, that all roads seemed to point in the direction of Baklava. It turned out so well that my friend Lisa and I made enough for 130 people for our mutual friends wedding.

Vortex a man who likes to get his heart rate going    Mans

Wot you need

500g  chopped mixed nuts

1 ½ tsp ground cinnamon

1cup butter melted

1 x box (500g) phyllo  pastry

1 x cup white sugar

1 x cup water

½ cup honey

1 ½ tsp vanilla extract

Zest of 1 lemon

                                                                                                                  

                                                                                                         Wot to do

Creative lighting by mans   Mans

The result of the lighting       Mans 

Preheat oven to 175degrees c. Butter whatever baking dish you have that’s close to half the size of a phyllo pastry sheet, if you don’t have one that size, just mosh whatever plan you can, even if you have to trim, or overlap the pastry, and what about the lost custom of borrowing from your friendly neighbour? Mix the   cinnamon into the nuts. Roll out the phyllo and cut to fit the baking dish (it should be in half, if you have got the right size dish). Keep the sheets of phyllo  that you are not working with covered with a damp cloth to stop em drying out.

Vortex's delish yoghurt                                          Mans

With a basting brush (a good old fashioned paint brush, in my case) paint a couple of leaves of phyllo with the melted butter and lay it on the bottom of the dish, now scatter a modest handful (2 to 3 tablespoons) of nuts on the phyllo. Keep repeating the process. Hopefully you’ll be lucky enough to have about 6 layers of phyllo, by the time your nuts are finished. It’s not a train smash if you have to adjust your nut amount to allow for this. Now using a sharp serrated knife cut the baklava into equal rows lengthways, then cut diagonals to form sexy diamonds. Pop into the oven for about 45mins until crispy and golden. While the baklava is doing it’s thing in the oven, throw the sugar and water into a small pot and bring to a boil over a medium heat. Add the honey, lemon zest and the vanilla. Turn down the heat and simmer for 20mins. When the baklava is looking very yummy, take it out of the oven and evenly spoon/pour the syrup over it, giving the flaky pastry a splendid shininess and thereby making it even more yummy.  Try your hardest to let it cool before you stuff a piece into your pie hole. It’s excellent with Double Greek yogurt.

                                                                                                                                                                                             Mans

PIGS CAN FLY. PART TWO. (Not for vegetarians)

A medieval way of boiling water for pig hair removal (new to me)                                                                          Me

Phew!!! So much seems to have happened in the last two weeks. The most significant by far was the slaughtering of ‘Concita’, our beautiful pig. Neither Stef nor I had ever witnessed something quite like this before and it left both of us well and truly rattled. All we wanted, was to get the hell out of there, but there was work to be done, so with gagging constitutions and heavy hearts, we put the bit between our teeth and worked though that hot Monday ‘mourning’. It took a few days, before we could bare to take the next tentative step to making our Christmas Feast a reality.

A pensive Andre before the deed  Me

Our plan is to use as much of the pig as we possibly can. As I journey down this road, I’m amazed at how very useful a pig actually is. While Stef and I are and dealing in 'The Ministry of Edibles', Harry is the 'Minister of Health and Energy', as he is responsible for making soap and candles from the rendered lard. Of course there’s a mountain of other stuff that he is doing too.

One of the hardened boyz      Me

Martin is smoking the gammons, and the bones. He is also making pancetta with the neck. Having recovered from ‘the ugly monday ordeal,’ Stef and I have found our groove again. We have made a spicy consommé with the hocks and trotters, which will be the jelly for the terrine, we have also made black pudding, which was a major education, and very nerve racking trusting that the intestine wasn’t gonna spring a leak or even worse, burst, leaving the kitchen looking like a violent crime scene. I rendered even more fat, which we’ll use for the short crust pastry for our mince pies. Our menu is coming on rather well, I would say and this is what it looks like.

Rendering fat       Me

MENU (so far)

-       - Pigs Eyes -  (a fresh mulberry set in a limoncello jelly shot)

-       - Piggy Delectable’s - done on the braai (barbecue) which include sage, wild garlic chive and gooseberry sausage, together with crispy belly slices and ribs (by chef Andrew)

-       - Pate' on crostinni

-       - Tripe and Trotters (again Andrew)

-       - Cold Pea Soup – made from a clear stock from the smoked bones

-       - Terrine

-       - Glazed Christmas Gammon – glazed and decorated with fig preserve (wild figs collected right outside the venue) with my mothers Cumberland Sauce. Served with rosti, creamed ‘spinach’ (nettle, pumpkin tips, African spinach), local wild squash roasted and a cress and black pudding salad. (Nasturtiums will probably make their seasons finale curtain call)

-       - Mince Pies – a sweet short crust made from pig lard with currents, mulberries and sherry

The start of a savory jelly

Black Pudding

Cumberland Sauce 

So far this whole process has showed me how out of touch we (today’s urban society) are from what the processes and implications it takes to get food to our tables.

Finally, in spreading the word about this feast, I have been surprised at how many people will happily buy packaged bacon off the supermarket shelves and not consider what sort of life that pig has lived, yet the nature of our feast seems a little too brutal for their taste. At least we know Concita was loved and well looked after and we’ll be using all of her.

The fine ladz who really did the hard work, carrying a symbolic white coffin                                                     Me

(The ‘Pigs Can Fly’ Christmas Celebration will take place on 8 Dec in Tamboerskloof, Cape Town. For bookings please contact Harry on Vleisbook. Ooops! I mean Facebook at 'Harry’s Big Wine Adventure’ Facebook page or email Harry at harrymelck@gmail.com)

NOSTALGIA CRUMBLE

The ever comforting crumble.                                                                                            Mans

I just missed my gap to make a little something from mulberries last season and was determined not to miss out this year, which gave me nearly a year to ‘mull’ over wot to make. I asked heaps of people wot mulberries meant to them and it seemed that the little berries transported everyone back to their childhood, be it  silkworms or angry mothers moaning about purple stains on their clothes. My mulberry dish simply had to be something that is kid friendly. I really wanted to make a short crust mulberry pie, coz I wanted to use the name ‘Purple Finger Pie’, but making short crust pastry can be a little tricky, so I went for a crumble and the simplest one possible. The result was better then I could have ever have hoped for

Wot you need

2/3rds cake flour

1/3rd butter

A baking dish full of freshly plucked mulberries.

A shake of sugar 

                                                                                                         Wot to do

Don't skimp on the butter        Mans

No escaping purple fingers     Mans

If you know me, you’ll know, I’m not one for exact measurements, but let me try to guide you through my rather haphazard crumble method – Estimate the amount of flour that would generously cover the area of your baking dish and some. Now add half the flour amount of chopped cold butter, then sprinkle in some sugar, til it’s sweet enough for your taste. With your hands work the butter into the flour and sugar mix til it’s all crumbly. Pop the crumble mix in a pre-heated oven at about 180 degrees c for about 5 mins. This gives it an extra crunchy edge.

Ok, I threw a sliced apple, just because.                                      Mans

Now onto the mulberry part - Pull out those little green stems from every berry, it might take some time, but it’s important that you really focus and get completely absorbed in the moment, just as a kid would and before you know it you have a dish full of the deep purple nuggets ready for sugaring. Shake sugar over the mulberries. This is when I get out of ‘kid mode’ for just a moment, coz I like to have that mouth puckering tartness to my crumble, but if you want to express your inner child, shake that sugar packet a bit or a lot longer. By the time you have done all of this, your blind baked crumble should long ago be out the oven. Cover your dish of mulberries and sugar with the crumble and pop in the oven til the crumble is golden brown and purple lava bubbles through the crumble around the edges, and if you are really lucky you might get an odd purple geyser bursting through other parts of the crumble. Serve hot with pouring cream, custard or ice cream.

Yum...                                                                                                                                                                                Mans

PIGS CAN FLY (so can cars) - PART 1

Mans, this blog sites main photographer, doing his paying job. Here he is, directing the crane drivers for our rig, that we designed and installed for Gravitron Effects.                                                                                               Me with iPhone 

'The Mans' posing of me, for once.        Me

Before we get started on food, I must first apologies for getting this blog out a few days late. ‘SORRY MAN.’

This is my lame excuse. As I’m sure you can imagine, I spend heaps of time dealing with food related stuff, like this blog, shooting video blogs, making a promo and treatment for a TV cooking series, writing my cookbook, organizing ‘Urban Feasts’ (this blog is about an up coming one), looking after my little herb and veggie garden, foraging, and just simply cooking. That all adds up to A LOT of time, from which I’m yet to earn a cent. So at some stage I have to earn a buck, and thatz zactly wot I woz doing that kept me from posting this blog, until now. Mans, who has taken most of the fantastic pics for ‘The Urban Hunter Gatherer’ blog is also my business partner and we make our living by flying people and props for the live entertainment and film industries. This week we have had to leave the kitchen and head onto set, to make a real live Roll Royce ‘fly’ into a swimming pool.

Now onto cooking stuff -

Stef, Harry and I (The Urban Feast Team) are well into the throws of planning our third event. We never really planned the first two, opportunities just happened to present themselves, so like all opportunistic hunter gatherers, we went for it. Now another opportunity has presented itself, so again we are going for it.

Andre - a scholar, a gentleman, an artist and a 'father' to many.                                                                               Mans

Martin of 'Cured'  Mans

Andre has a farm (a property owned by the military and managed by The Department of Public Works) not much more then a 10minute walk from the very centre of Cape Town. I first heard about Andre when I lived in the Bokaap, a vibrant residential area in the heart of the city. I knew about Andre, because his cow, Daisy and a handful of goats used to graze on the open plot right in front of my house, so when I enquired about this unusual occurrence, everybody smiled and said, ‘Oh, they are just Andre’s.’ Everyone seems to know Andre.

Years later and living in a different part of town, I decided that I too wanted to know Andre, especially now that I had started writing The Urban Hunter Gatherer blog. When I met him I immediately warmed to him, it’s near impossible not to. He has a huge white beard and an even bigger heart. Andre kindly showed me around and pointed out plenty of stuff that I was welcome to forage. (The figs from my last blog were foraged at ‘the farm’)

Stef from 'Sprung'  Mans

Andre is hugely important in the community. The local residents bring their organic food waste to him, which becomes pig food and compost; and their garden foliage becomes goat food and compost, so he is effectively dealing with heaps of residential organic waste in the most environmentally friendly way possible. But the most important service that Andre provides, is the foster care he offers to disadvantaged and homeless people. He is a father to many. He puts roofs over heads, feeds empty stomachs and looks after elderly folk in the area. Then there are a whole lot of other amazing things about the man, that I won’t go into now.

Anyhow, I believe I’m a spiritual being, but don’t subscribe to any religion and certainly don’t put any religion above another, but by its nature and its timing, it would make sense that The Third Urban Feast should be a 

Christmas celebration, as the menu will exclude Muslims, Jews, Hindus and others. You see, we plan to slaughter one of Andres’ pigs and feed 50 people with her. We will show her our respect by using as much of her as possible, even down to using her fat as fuel for lighting.

The Lads plotting their next move.         Mans

For our feast, we hope that every course on the menu, including pudding will include pig. It sounds outrageous, but we hope that the food will be very accessible to all those who indulge in pig. Martin from ‘Cured’ will look after the curing, smoking and sausaging, while Stef from ‘Sprung’ will head up the kitchen. Other chefs will also be presenting their courses. It is gotta be a huge team effort to make this event a success, but right now I’m thinking, ‘WOT THE HELL ARE WE DOING?’

Concita                              Mans

GREEN FIG PRESERVE

As soon as I switched into hunter-gatherer mode, I became aware of how many fig trees are lurking about in Cape Town. Now, from my understanding a fig tree bears fruit twice a year and that’s in spring and then again during the hottest part of summer. So in Cape Town, that’ll be October and the end of January. I would assume fig trees behave the same in the northern hemisphere. (‘Same same, but different’). I imagine the first fruiting of northern figs would be round about April while the second would be July/August. (Somebody please correct me if I’m talking shite). Anyhow, the first figs of the season, never really ripen, so they are rubbish for the table or for chomping out of the hand, but these are the figs that are perfect for preserving. Check out the video blog to see how I do it. There are definitely more precise recipes, but this way works fine for me, coz I never know how many figs I’ll be bringing home.

How Biblical ?                                                                      Me

Wot you need.

A bundle of green figs (I go for the smaller ones)

A sprinkling of slaked lime

A goodly amount of sugar

Water

If you want you can add sliced ginger, allspice or cinnamon to your syrup mixture and even a little brandy at the bottling stage. Be as clever as you want, but beware of being too clever for you own good.

The first figs of the season never ripen                        Mans

Wot to do

Cut the stem of each fig below the 'joiny type thingy', give it a bit of a scrub with a nailbrush, cut a shallow cross at the bottom, place in a bowl, sprinkle with a little slaked lime, cover with water, place a plate over the bowl with a weight on (a can of something does just fine) so all the figs are submerged and leave to soak overnight. The next day, give the little fellows a good rinse, pop em into a generous sized pot, cover with water and bring to the boil. Let them simmer just long enough so the skin punctures easily when you stab them with a toothpick. Drain the water, then do an eyeball measurement of the level of the drained figs. Remove figs from the pot, and pour in water to more or less the level of the figs, then measure the water and add the same amount of sugar e.g. If it’s four cups of water then add four cups of sugar. Bring your syrup to the boil and gently add the figs. Simmer for about two and a half hours, until the figs are glossy right though and your syrup has reduced by about a third. Bottle in sterilized jars and seal while hot. Save any extra syrup for, ice cream, yoghurt and sponge cake toppings, for smoothies or for my Damn Fine Granola recipe. (see blog archives).

Green Fig Preserve and Cheese are a perfect chomp for anytime, anywhere                                                                Mans

GUAVAS. SHAKING THE TREE.

Give it plenty of welly                             Mans

They say it’s guava season, although I’m not convinced. Well ok, it’s actually right at the end of the season (remember, I live in the southern hemisphere), so I had to make use of the fading window of opportunity and get me hands on some guavas. Via facebook, my friends Ez and Poley Moley, who have three or four guava trees in their garden, more than obliged by arranging a happy little gathering, where we all jovially chomped a fine Indian vegetarian meal with our hands. The highlights were Poly Moley’s delicious rotis, but this is hardly surprising, coz Poley is ‘The Undisputed Roti Champion of the World’.

Eat at least two while collecting them                     Mans

Anyway, before the happy chopping happened, I learnt the art of guava picking.

Guava Picking Technique

Put on crash helmet and place gum guard

Grab an appropriate branch and shake violently

Collect guavas off the deck, while eating at least two

Now, with a basket of guavas wot does one do? At our little gathering, Ez poached a few in a little water with a scoop of honey and served them up with a dollop of yoghurt with a little more honey drizzled over the top. Simple, but delicious. Coz I had a whole lot of them, I chose to try my hand at bottling them in a vanilla sugar syrup. After a little advice from my friend Anna, I blindly gave it a go. My method woz far from scientific. This is wot I did.

Rustic works for me                Mans

Wot you need

Guavas

Sugar

Vanilla pods

Water

Wot to do

Top and tail the guavas and chop them in half. I didn’t go with exact measurements, but rather felt my way with ratios. I put the guavas in a pot and memorized roughly the level. I then took the guavas out and filled the pot with water to about two thirds (I think  half would be better) of the previous guava level. I then measured the amount of water in the pot, tossed in an equal quantity of sugar, scraped the seeds out of a couple of vanilla pods, threw both the seeds and empty pods into the pot, bought the syrup to a boil, then gently placed the guavas in the hot syrup. When they returned to the boil again, I turned off the heat and bottled the little pink beauties in sterilized jars. My ratios were not quite right coz I ended up with a bottle of guava syrup as well. I mean, ‘how bad is that mistake?’. I know this method is far from an exact science; it’s all about guesswork and a lot of faith. I must say I was rather delighted how yummy they turned out, although the younger firmer guavas seemed to be better. I was not in a position to be fussy, coz at the end of the season you take wot you can.

Nothing fancy, but very homely and comforting                                                                                              Mans