So I’m not really big on posting recipes. Why? Well, let’s be honest, there’s a ton of recipes out there already and I’m not exactly Marco Pierre White, even though I’m dying to read his autobiography. I just like to cook shit. Though I can’t even follow recipes myself, seriously. There are really two types of cooks: those that can cook ‘winging it,’ knowing how flavours work together and just trying things as they go along; and those that follow recipes. I’m definitely not the latter. I’m the guy with the blank look on his face staring at shelves in the supermarket, working out dishes in my head. I spend 20-minutes staring at the vegetable aisle figuring out what I’m going to cook. Actually, I spend 10-minutes in the meat aisle first, then once I’ve picked my meat I head to the veggie aisle for that decision process. The only thing that takes longer is picking a DVD on Sunday evening.
Anyways, Sunday was a beautiful summer-like day, the Dad was in town and my sister texted me to see what we should make for lunch. I suddenly found myself sending the message back, “Braaied chicken marinated in Berne, chilli, ginger, garlic and tons of honey. Sides etc.” Maybe it was because I hadn’t had a beer in ages. Like two full days. Or whatever, I just felt like making that. And drinking Berne. There’s something satisfying about drinking and eating something made with the same beverage. As an amateur cook, the second best thing about having a professional cook sister is that she has everything in her kitchen (Obviously the best thing is when she cooks herself). She simply replied: “Just bring the beer.”
And so it happened. Chicken in Berne. With loads of garlic, chilli, ginger, harissa paste and other stuff thrown in too. What paste, huh? Harissa, there you go. It’s really freaking easy, so easy I figured I could post the recipe and even people from both camps (the recipe followers and the ‘winging it’ folk) could try it. It worked really well, the spices and beer flavours merging into one unified smack of deliciousness. Even more so when served alongside some grated fennel salad with vinaigrette and some baby potatoes drenched in olive oil, parsley and coriander.
Sunday lunch. With the family. And beer. And some good Silverthorn bubbly to kick things off. Winning, it’s really not hard.
Do try this at home, kids. You’ll need…
1 Elgin Free-Range chicken, spatchcocked (can someone Google that to find out where the hell that word came from?)
1 Brewers & Union Berne Amber Lager
Tbsp garlic
Tbsp ginger
Tbsp green chilli
3 Tbsp harissa paste
5 Tbsp honey
tsp paprika
tsp cumin
salt & pepper
1/2 handful fresh coriander, finely chopped
1/2 handful fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 lime & 1 lemon
Okay, it simple from here. Firstly, light your fire, ideally wood with some charcoal added.
While that’s burning down, make a mix from the garlic, ginger, chilli along with a good dose of salt and pepper in a bowl.
Cut your chicken in half, breasts joined in the middle, and press flat. Salt and pepper both sides all over, then take the above mix and spread it under the skin that covers the breasts & legs, saving a little bit of mix.
Put the chicken in a dish, breast-side up, and empty the Berne all over it. Then sprinkle the remaining garlic-etc mix over the top along with 1/2 the harissa paste, paprika and cumin. Let this sit for at least an hour or so. The longer the better.
Once the fire’s ready, separate the coals and add the chicken so it’s not on direct heat, then if it’s a Weber, put the lid on to smoke it nicely. Turn it a few times over 30 minutes, basting with the beer.
Leave the chicken to cook, head to the kitchen and reduce the beer mixture in a pan until it’s about 1/4 it’s original volume. Once it’s there, add the honey and remaining harissa paste and cook a few minutes longer then remove. Take this outside and baste the chicken a few times, turning, until it’s ready (i.e. nicely browned, cooked through).
Remove chicken and cut on a board into pieces. Pour reduced beer sauce over the top, squeeze lemon & lime and then sprinkle with coriander & parsley and serve, with some more Berne.*
There it is. Less yada yada. More happy eating.
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* And if you didn’t finish two Berne’s yourself during the cooking process you’ve failed miserably!
Cape Town is spoilt, and not just with good weather, a pretty mountain and great natural beauty (on Camps Bay beach yesterday, particularly). We also get our third beer festival in just a few months. We’ve had the Oktoberfest celebrations, the We Love Real Beer craft beer festival and now we’re having the Cape Town Festival of Beer.
This one looks set to be the biggest of all, offering a fat lineup of beers from breweries both large and little. There’s also pleny of food and even a beer hall style setup with frauleins serving giant frothy mugs of brew. If you’re around on the weekend of 25 – 27 November, and you enjoy a good pint, this is where you should be. Hopefully the weather is perfect and you can sit on the lawn and enjoy a few in the sun. Not a bad way to do it.
When: 25-27 November. Gates open 5pm Thursday; 12pm on Friday and Saturday. (Tickets R50).
Where: Hamilton’s Rugby Club.
Why: Camelthorn Brewing Company (Namibia), Jack Black, Boston Breweries, Mitchells (Knysna), Napier Brewery (Napier), Darling Brewery (Darling), Robsons (Shongweni), Cobra, Duvel, Singha, Erdinger, Corona, Paulaner, Bavaria, Castle, Grolsch, Peroni, Millers, Black Label, Windhoek, Duvel & more.
www.capetownfestivalofbeer.co.za
1. Sneaking a swig of whisky out the bottle in the middle of the day.
2. Sipping gin & tonic on an international flight.
3. Drinking Zamalek out of a quart while sitting on a beer crate.
4. A big glass of red wine by the fireplace in winter while it pours down outside.
5. That first impulsive tequila you order on Friday at 5.30pm that you know isn’t the last.
6. Moerkoffie at sunrise in the bush somewhere.
7. Quaffing white wine out a plastic cup on the beach for summer sundowners.
8. Sipping rum while on a sailboat somewhere in the tropics.
9. The first sip of ice cold beer around 11am at the Saturday market.
10. Uncorking a bottle of bubbly for no occasion whatsoever.
11. Hot chocolate spiked with Drambuie – and with marshmallows – on the couch under a duvet.
12. A dirty martini with three olives on the toothpick served at a swanky hotel bar.
13. That double Klippies & Coke at the bar in a small town with a name that ends in ‘-fontein.’
14. Squeezing naartjie Energade into your mouth at the Engen on Orange at 4am.*
15. A really spicy Bloody Mary on a Sunday morning while reading the Sunday Times.
16. Drinking good wine overlooking vineyards. Any vineyards.
17. That breakfast orange juice, secretly with vodka in it, drunk at the family gathering.
18. A pint of Bosun’s Bitter on the Lookout Deck in Plett.
19. A well mixed margarita, served on the rocks, in a tumbler with a salted rim (anywhere they can serve this).
20. That unnecessary last bottle of really good wine you opened at the dinner party but barely remember the next day.
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* – not alcoholic, but drunk due to alcohol.
(Comments below, feel free to add in any moments you feel should be on this list…)
The aftermath should leave your entire table surface strewn with leftover bits of veggies on plates, scattered spoons and chopsticks, empty beer bottles and crumpled napkins. Signs of a good meal. Where? Chai-Yo. When? Well, the best Thai restaurant in Cape Town is open seven days a week, for lunch and dinner. Oh, and they’re also open on public holidays, so I’ll leave the time up to you. It shouldn’t be too hard.
Chai-Yo has thrived for well over a decade while other lesser restaurants continually come and go on the unsettled strip of Durban Road, Mowbray. And it lasts for good reason: the food is fragrant, intensely flavoured and incredibly tasty. Actually, scrap that, it’s better. Some of the dishes are just freakily, mouthwateringly magnificent. Better than I’ve had anywhere in Cape Town. Better than I’ve eaten in Thailand.
They have a dish that brought me not quite to my knees but almost. It actually got me back twice in one week, this mixed seafood curry that’s so good ‘the crave’ starts just thinking about it. It’s basically fish, prawns, calamari and mussels in a red curry sauce that comes in a cabbage parcel, with plenty of kaffir lime leaf flavour and sweet basil leaves. It could do without the mussels, but either way the dish is intoxicating; my favourite curry at the moment and perhaps of all time.
Chai-Yo’s menu spans the usual Thai genre, from satays to Tom Yum soups to curries and noodles dishes. The Pad Thai is reliably satisfying, delicate Tom Ka Gai coconut soup quite outstanding and lightly battered Kingklip served with chili and lime sauce nothing less than superb. Their dumplings can be a touch rubbery, but still very flavourful. Angry Duck was a little mild on the spice so we renamed it Mildly Agitated Duck. However, do not ask for anything to be prepared ‘hot’ on the spice scale or you will need to prepare your rear nether region for serious battle. The kitchen clearly take a ‘hot’ request as a challenge to see how much you can perspire through your forehead and cheeks. Not a problem in Thailand, where the weather hides your food-induced perspiration amidst the ample humidity-induced perspiration, but in Chai-Yo you might find neighbouring tables give you strange looks when you continually use your napkin as a sweat towel. Wristbands from your tennis kit may be a good accessory if you travel the ‘hot route.’
Aside from the food, there’s not much to draw you to Chai-Yo. You’re certainly not there for the sterile tile floors, slightly tacky wooden furniture and scant decoration efforts. Service is adequate and the wine list unexciting. But it’s all easily unnoticed when you’re slurping food this good.
A thought on Thai food and wine.
Pairing wine with food that has such unique and pungent flavours as Thai – think fish sauce, kaffir lime, aniseed – and is more often very spicy, isn’t easy. Over the last few meals at Chai-Yo and other Asian restaurants I’ve tried some interesting, floral whites, including Gewurztraminer, Rielsing and Sauvignon Blanc, with the food. Some bolder Chenin Blancs have worked, and some red with some dishes, but in reality, nothing matches with everything Asian as well as beer. I’m a serious wino but have to admit that beer really does go perfectly. Henceforth, unless you’ve got a sure bet, don’t waste your time with wine in future. As the Thai’s know, beer goes best.
www.chaiyomowbray.co.za/
(Oh, there’s also Chai Yo in Canal Walk apparently, but then who the hell would rather eat there?)
Okay, this is just one of thousands of cool beers you can get in New York, but wanted to share it with you. Hitachino Nest make awesome beer. A Japanese brewery that uses hops from all over the world (this one is made with English hops!), does things like mature beer in sake barrels and makes interesting beers like their Red Rice Ale – seriously, these guys are amazing. I had their White Ale years ago and never forgot it: the stuff is heavenly. And checkout the packaging.
Awesome stuff. And I happened to drink their Japanese Classic Ale at a restaurant last night. Wow. Paired with chipotle-spiced chickpea toast (which is something out-of-this-world on its own) it was incredible. Rich and creamy, with a bit of spice to compliment the toast – perfect.
New York is undoubtedly the food capital of the world. And you can get so many amazing wines here. But the beers… oh boy, they’re something else!!
Checkout the full Hitachino Nest range here.
The new beer from the boys at Brewers & Union is Berne. An Amber Lager, Berne would seem to fit in the middle of the range of beers at &UNION. It’s not as fruity and light as Steph. It’s not as dark as the Dark. It’s not as mad-freaking-crazy as the Touro, their 10% alcohol demon-beer from hell, aka Blackhands (because you’re going to end up crawling on the street after a few and will wake up with… you said it). No, Berne is like the middle brother. The flavour has lovely sweet notes, almost like wild honey. It goes down very smoothly, and is actually quite light for its colour. Overall, it’s a pretty damned tasty beer.
The Berne flavour actually reminds me of a Pale Ale (which is big in the States), while the weight is closer to a lager. Brilliant – a more flavorful lager is what we have here, folks. I’m not a big fan of lager. Castle, Windhoek, Zamalek, Heineken, Amstel and all the others really taste like watered down beer. Corona could probably just be relabeled as bottled water. Real beer has more flavour and character. Well, in my book it does. The Unfiltered at &UNION is a good lager. Jack Black is also good, even better if you ask me. I still think the Touro is perhaps the most outrageously flavourful, delicious and impressive beer you can buy. With R125 – though it’s worth it. But then it’s an ale. As far as I know, an amber lager like Berne is made like any lager (bottom-fermented), but the barley malt is toasted, hence the increased flavour, and colour. And increased tendency for me to drink it more often. Even before noon.
Berne is a beer you can drink a lot of, and often. And that makes it a cracker. Well done guys.
www.brewersandunion.com
I recently decided, after a long day (I woke up at 5am because of vinsomnia: difficulty sleeping through too much wine) and a good bit of exercise, to lastminute pop into &UNION for a quick prego and a beer for dinner. If you haven’t had a prego roll from them, you should. I could leave it there, but it’s worth going on. On the Official Portuguese Prego Rating Scale of 1 – 10 their prego rates somewhere between 10 and ‘fucking delicious.’ The beef option is lighter than the pork (the pork one literally squirts fatty juice out, sometimes on your white shirt, but nevertheless I reckon it’s a good thing), but both are exceptional. It comes on ciabatta instead of the Portuguese ‘puffy roll,’ and the meat sits on top layers of Black Forest Ham with some greens and chili sauce on the side, best when added all together. I’ve had prego’s from Mano’s, Diaz Tavern and Chippies (get your passport, they’re in Rondebosch or Observatory) and others, but this one is the finest. I think of the prego as like a European burger, something meaty to tuck into that fills the spot and isn’t too cerebral to get your head around. Meat, roll, sauce: check. Okay, destroy it!
And if you’re going to that, you might as well do it with a beer that cuts the fat and quenches the thirst at the same time. The Steph Weiss does all this. Fruity and fresh, light yet full-flavoured, with some good yeasty character, it slaps the tastebuds awake and into gear. It’s perfect with a prego for dinner. It’s also a great beer to sneak in with lunch. Or to enjoy in the evening. I’d even crack one at 11am. But only on weekends. Or holidays. Or Mondays.
www.andunion.com
Who is the Foodie? It doesn’t really matter. Bacon is god. Wine cures anything. If you believe those two facts, then we’re going to get on fine. This means you have discovered the power of food to make life better. This knowledge is imperative to the art of living well.
