Article from the January 2014 issue of Food and Home Entertaining Magazine.
Thinking of getting your hands dirty on the food production front this year? Here’s the Food & Home Entertaining guide to making 2014 the year you take on the artisanal challenge.
Remember when…
Our moms used to make their own delicious fruit cordials, biltong, mustard, rusks, yoghurt and honeycomb? Why not revive some family traditions?
It was never going to be a straightforward journey, replacing all the mass-produced items in our grocery cupboard, but as the artisanal movement gains momentum, more and more people like you and me are making a start. Weekend markets are bursting with local producers of handmade products, from chocolate and cheese to craft beer.
But for most of us who have day jobs and don’t necessarily want to turn this into a second career, the idea of making our own cheese and wine is a little more daunting. Plus, does the set-up cost of creating your own chocolate factory at home really make sense when you’re not planning to go into commercial production?
In most cases the costs are not crippling, and the experience of making and eating something previously unimaginable is probably worth every cent.
Emerging from an age where we all sought convenience above all else, terms like food security, health, nutrition, creativity and superior flavour are now the new priorities, and we’re all itching to become part of the revolution.
Chocolate is so easy to make – everyone should be giving it a try, says Lara.
Chocolate
Channel your inner Willy Wonka and try your hand at home-made chocolate. It’s really not that difficult, says Lara Sklaar, who founded Fine & Raw South Africa a few years after her brother set the ball rolling in New York. She sells her chocolate at markets around SA and more than 40 shops already sell deliciously organic, fair-trade, sugar-free and home-made Fine & Raw.
Lara runs chocolate “gatherings” (not classes, she insists) at her chocolate factory in lllovo, Johannesburg, and says all her students are surprised when they go home with truffles and a chocolate bar they have made themselves in a few hours.
Pros? The start-up is not that costly, nor do you need a lot of specialised equipment. According to Lara, we should all eat between 20 and 30g of raw chocolate every day, for its antioxidants, minerals, magnesium and other health-giving qualities.
Cons? Making chocolate can be messy and addictive!
Setting it up: It’s best to set up a home chocolate factory in a cool space so that the chocolate sets easily. For the rest, you need double boilers, spoons and measuring utensils – all regular kitchen kit. Go to fineandraw.co.za to find out more about Lara Sklaar’s chocolate “gatherings”.
Insider tips: Africa is the largest producer of cacao in the world. However, not all sources are fair trade or organic. To enjoy all the health benefits that raw chocolate offers, ensure that your ingredients are the best quality available.
Cheese
To make cheese at home, it’s best to get full-cream, antibiotic-free milk directly from a farmer. You can get certified raw milk from Irene Dairy Farm (irenefarm.co.za), or strike up a relationship with your nearest dairy farmer. To make your own soft cheese, you need to warm the milk and add lactic acid bacteria and cultures to sour the milk. Rennet is added to coagulate the milk before cutting up the coagulum and pouring it through a sieve to drain the whey. The curd is put into a mould to be pressed, which you can do by placing a wooden cutting board and a heavy bucket of water on top of the mould. Some cheese, like feta, isn’t pressed. The cheese is then salted and matured at around 12°C for anything from six weeks to 18 months, depending on the kind of cheese.
Pros? You can make cheese easily in your kitchen, because it doesn’t take up much space.
Cons? If there are antibiotics in the milk, it won’t coagulate. Organic milk all the way!
Setting it up: To start, you need a double boiler from a kitchenware company, a plastic spoon, knife, a thermometer, cultures, rennet and a cheese mould.
Insider tips? Joan Berning, owner of dairy equipment company, Finest Kind, says, “Make detailed notes of the cheese process every time you make cheese, so you can learn where you went wrong (or right!)”
Getting started: Visit finestkind.co.za for a starter kit that includes moulds, cheesecloth, rennet and cultures. It will cost between R500 and R6 000.
Wine
You can make wine at home using a plastic container or, if you want to get a bit fancy, a second-hand wooden barrel. The process involves getting real wine grapes (not your average table grapes) from a wine farm (or from wine.co.za for the landlocked), stripping them from their stalks and placing them in a container with some store-bought yeast to ferment. About a week later, you’ll separate the juice from the skins and transfer the juice to the barrel (or a second container) to mature. You’ll need to test-taste regularly, and keep topping it up with either distilled water or wine from a previous batch (this minimises the air at the top of the barrel – air spoils wine).
Pros? You can start with varietals that are more likely to taste great the first time you make them. The easiest varietals to start with are cabernet sauvignon or shiraz.
Cons? Sit tight; your wine will need to stay in the barrel for about six months before you can bottle it. Also, you have to pretty much babysit your wine, which will need topping up to make up for evaporation.
Setting it up:The barrel or container must be kept in a cool area in your home, away from other fumes. All your equipment should be thoroughly scrubbed with citric acid and rinsed out before use.
Insider tips? Sara Webster, winemaker from JHB Wine, says, “it’s easier to make red wine than white as white wine needs large refrigeration units. Plus, it’s a little easier to mask colour faults in red wine – perfect for the first-timer.”
Get started: Buy a kit to make 60 bottles for around R3 000 from winemakingkits.co.za. The kit includes grapes, an oak barrel, plunging and separating tools, yeast, containers and an instruction booklet.
Sourdough
Sourdough is simply bread leavened with wild yeast, which develops slowly to produce the unique flavours of sourdough bread. To make the wild yeast that is used for leavening sourdough breads (known as a ‘starter’), mix stoneground rye flour with water and leave it in a glass jar at room temperature for 24 hours, before repeating the process with different amounts of flour and water, depending on the recipe, for three more days. The dough will eventually double in size and then you take part of it, mix in water and flour, and leave for six to eight hours before using.
Pros? All sourdough breads are naturally low Gl.
Cons? You need patience. Working with wild yeast is an art, and it takes time to master.
Setting it up: You will need just enough space for a glass or ceramic bowl, but you will need to babysit your culture.
Insider tips? Graeme Taute from The Wild Bread Co. says, “Start building a culture in spring or autumn. And try to get locally sourced stoneground rye flour from Eureka Mills (eurekamills.co.za), as it’s a high-quality product.”
Get started: Source a bag of stoneground rye flour (R38 – R50 for 2,5kg). Look for starter recipes online or try The Bread Baker’s Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread by Peter Reinhart (about R220 from amazon.com).
Craft beer
You’ll never be short of friends if you always have your own craft beer in the fridge. It’s best to get a starter kit from tradeger.co.za, which comes with everything you’ll need to get brewing, including a plastic bucket with lid and tap, a bubbler air lock, extract (lager, pilsner, ale etc.), a thermometer and a bottle capper. Mix the extract with hot water and ready-made yeast, and leave it for 10 days to two weeks. Add carbonation drops and then it’s time to bottle it.
Pros? Making beer can be very simple. In fact, Donald Coward from Tradeger Brewing Concepts likens it to making instant soup: add water to extract and wait.
Cons? Make sure you keep all equipment clean and sterile after each batch, or you’ll risk infecting the next batch when you get brewing again.
Setting it up: You need a bucket that holds around 25 – 30 litres, which can stay in an area where the temperature is consistent.
Insider tips? Coward says, “Eventually, try experimenting with different hops and malts.” Get those from beerguevara.com.
Get started: Visit tradeger.co.za for the starter kit (around R995) and check out thebeerkeg.co.za for info.
Honey
If you’re fortunate enough to live on the outskirts of the city and have enough space to accommodate a swarm or two without risking any lives, becoming a hobbyist beekeeper isn’t too complicated. You simply need a basic understanding of how a honeybee colony works. Then you can trap a new colony by putting out a trap box. The bees should move into the box – especially in Joburg where there is a shortage of space for bees. You’ll then need to maintain the hive and extract the honeycomb. Once the bees have filled their honeycomb with honey, they seal the cells with beeswax. Melt the wax by heating it with a solar wax extractor or boiling it. If you leave it to stand overnight, the wax will settle on the surface and can be skimmed off the honey.
Pros? Beekeeping isn’t just great for making honey – you’ll also be helping to sustain these life-giving insects, which are needed to pollinate crops.
Cons? Beekeeping in a townhouse or complex simply won’t work – you need space.
Setting it up: First, make sure your municipal area allows beekeeping. If you have a big garden, keep your hive in a shady spot away from children and pets. You’ll need to have made or bought a beehive. First-timers can use the trap-box, which holds five brood frames (slats that house the bees’ eggs, larvae and pupae), which the bees use to construct their combs. You’ll also need protective clothing – overalls, a veil, gloves and boots. Get a hive tool, to loosen or scrape off parts of the hive, a smoker to calm the bees, and a bee brush to gently remove bees from a surface.
Insider tips: Mike Miles, a registered beekeeper, suggests first-time beekeepers start their colony between September and October, and keep their hives 50cm off the ground.
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