I am really spoilt with kitchen gadgets galore and so I seldom bother to make anything other than boiled eggs. I have an egg boiler and all you do is prick the egg, add the water, cover, switch it on and hey presto, with the ringing of a bell, boiled eggs. Some weekends scrambled eggs will feature on my breakfast table, and if Dave is cooking, omelette’s are on order. But, I braved up and decided to make poached eggs for supper after a glass of wine. Now, I am not sure if the wine helped, but the concentration I was forced to use to get this right must have helped a bit. I tried again a few mornings later and I did not get the same perfect result. Now, I do not advocate having a drink to improve your cooking, but with poached eggs, I might always follow Floyd’s rule of a glass of wine (see badge alongside).

POACHED EGGS

ingredients:

fresh eggs at room temperature

1 teaspoon vinegar

method:

put a pan of water onto boil

add the vinegar

crack each egg into a small bowl

stir the water to create a vortex

gently slide an egg at a time into the water, stirring between each addition

the eggs are done as soon as the white is set but the yolk must still be soft

(time about 2min 30s, or if you take your eggs straight from the fridge, you will need 3 minutes)

refresh in cold water and drain before serving

cooks note:

fresh eggs will yield the best results

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Please see this week’s Something Sweet Challenge - you stand a chance to win a Le Creuset set of cassis rectangular dishes – 1 x 26cm and 1 x 19cm valued at R398. See the competition page for more details.

Tandy

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This gem of a restaurant is tucked away in a side street of Stellenbosch and is a great find. I can highly recommend you take a trip through there to give them a try – you will not be disappointed. From the linen, to the cutlery, the service and the food, there is not one thing I could fault about our fine dining experience.

MARCH 2011

The wine list is excellent and offers a good selection of wine by the glass. I am going to start pricing the Meerlust Rubicon (my favourite wine) as a guide post in the same manner I always order the crème brûlée. The Rubicon 2006 goes for R440 a bottle. We chose a Neethlingshof Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot Blend 2008 (R125) and as expected from this estate, the wine was great.

As we were joined by friends, I could not write notes about the menu. I did however keep the bill and so I can tell you what we ate. The menu is varied and traditionally South African. What sticks out most for me was the possibility of having a taster plate of main courses or desserts of local treats. I think this is great if you have overseas guests as they can be exposed to our unique flavours.

Starters at the table: vegetarian tart (R50); soup of the day (35) which was butternut and I thought really good; prawn trio (R50); and a biltong gnocchi (R50). Lara and Michael shared the gnocchi and I heard her say “7″ which I thought was her rating for the dish, but was in fact the number of gnocchi in the starter. We all enjoyed our starters and they were the perfect portion size.

Main courses: line fish of the day (R120) which was sole – and Bev got two large ones that she could not quite finish; Marais’ chicken pie (which I had to have due to the ‘national’ Western Cape jokes of Gatiep and Marais) packed full of chicken (R65); rack of lamb (R130); and braised oxtail potjie (R125) which I tasted as Lara had some left over and it was soft and falling off the bone. The main courses are more than generous and you will not leave there feeling hungry.

For dessert I had the crème brûlée (R40) which was above par! Michael had the Cape country pudding (R50) a taster of melktert, cooksister, malva pudding and Amarula mousse; and Lara had the trifle (R50).

Contact them on 021 887 2121

Tandy

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