To my mind, one of the best books to come out of South Africa, is A farm In My Heart by Emilia le Roux and Francois Smuts. It is written in a story form, and an account of daily life  on the farm with a wide selection of classic farm recipes, home remedies and preserving.

Emilia le Roux is one of the seven children who grew up on the farm Doornkraal. She and her husband, Francois Smuts, wrote this book for everyone who yearns for the land, and who wants to bake and cook utilizing recipes from a real farm kitchen.

This is not simply a cookbook, it’s also a down-to-earth, do-it-yourself guide to preparing your soil, making compost, planting, nurturing and harvesting. It will inspire you to reacquaint yourself with your own piece of land, and to live a simple and soul-filled life.

For a few recipes from the book, you see:

Deboned neck of lamb with garlic and herbs

Moroccan chicken

Tapenade

Focaccia or ciabatta

Créme caramel

Few more, click here

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

The UK may have their Mrs Beeton, and the USA Julia Child, but we have Mrs SJA De Villiers, author of Cook and Enjoy. This enlightening cookbook,  first published in Afrikaans in 1951, is still the bible to most South African cooks, both English and Afrikaans. It has sold over one million copies and gone through numerous updates. The latest edition of Cook & Enjoy , in English as well as one in Afrikaans (Kook & Geniet), has been completely revised by the original author’s  daughter. The new edition, published in 2009, combines a readable, modern feel with the classic look of the original.

It contains everything you need to know about cooking – from measuring ingredients and operating ovens to the preparation of vegetables and meat, and how to freeze foods, along with more than 700 recipes, specially tested – from breakfasts to mixed drinks, and recipes for large function catering. A large number of the dishes are beloved South African favourites. There’s also a great section about preserving foods.

The one cookery title that no South African home can do without. At Wickedfood Cooking School we use this book as a consent sauce of reference, especially for our South African cooking classes, as well as at Wickedfood Earth for ideas on preserving the bounty of fresh fruit and vegetables.

See our recipe of the week – Cheese soufflé, or click on one of the links below for a few recipes from the book.

Salmon mould

Curried fish (Pickled fish)

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Franchhoek is justly regarded as South Africa’s food capital, and has more good restaurants than any other town in South Africa.  Many of the leading chefs practise their culinary skills in the town, and it is such a food mecca that even the likes of the world’s top chef, Heston Blumenthal, has considered setting up in the town.

Franchhoek Food by Myrna Robins features 18 of the Valley’s best chefs, including Matthew Gordon, Reuben Riffel, Topsi Venter and Margot Janse. And apart from these superstars, there are also features on a number of the perhaps lesser known chefs who are also carving out a niche for themselves:

• Neil Jewell, of Bread & Wine, who is continually producing some of the best processed meats in the valley, if not in the country;
• La Petite Ferme -  with arguably the best restaurant view in the country, just have a look at the website, who specialize in hearty home cooking with flavour – Click Here for a delicious recipe from the restaurant; and
• Sandra Van Zyl of Kalfi’s, who despite only having 10% vision, manages continually to serve some of the best  South African traditional Cape cooking in the valley. Try her pickled fish, chicken pie or bobotie recipes.
  

This is haute cuisine cooking, with a touch of  history and some great photography of the finished dishes. Although many of the dishes are quite sophisticated, there are a number of dishes that are very easy to create in the home kitchen to impress friends and family.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

Justin Bonello is South Africa’s Cook, Traveler and lover of life, he lives a way of life that I’m sure anyone would swap their office job for, cruising the land with his mates in search of the next unique spot and that tasty meal that’s around the corner.

This book will be your inspiration to be adventurous, to extend your cooking repertoire and to be more ecologically aware. Based on the popular TV series on BBC Food, Cooked, this unique compilation of places, spaces and flavours combines chef Justin Bonello’s three favourite things – Southern Africa, food and friends. Bonello is passionate about ensuring that Africa’s diverse food cultures are recorded and celebrated so that future generations will be able to savour the culinary pleasures we enjoy today. His love affair with cooking and wide-open spaces began with weekends and school holidays spent in the great outdoors either on the Breede River or on the Wild Coast. He learned to embrace the land and all that it has to offer without taking from it anything that nature can’t replenish. Bonello believes that the beauty of travel and cooking can be found in searching for fresh produce, making new friends and discovering foods you didn’t even know existed. Once you’ve learned the basics and started growing your own produce, there’s no reason not to produce awesome meals – all it takes is a little courage and a pinch of creativity.

In his book Bonello creates something of a master piece in my eyes, it nearly looks like a collection of old newspaper clippings that have been collected and stored in an old journal, With interesting dishes like “Tarzan Roast” and “Rooibos smoked trout ravioli with burnt garlic and tequila sauce” and some more “skilled based instructions” like “Spiked Watermelon” and Drunken birds for the boys” and then finally my favourite “Karoo oysters” (I’ll let you research the last one).

I think that this is a great book, not only because he is a fellow South African and living the life, but because Justin is doing something he loves and at the same time showing us, the general South African public an appreciation for what is in their own back yard.

Interested in buying this book? visit - Red Pepper Books – The friendliest online bookshop under the South African sun, they will be able to offer you great prices on any book you are looking for.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Wickedfood Cooking school runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built Johannesburg cooking studios. Cookery classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our cooking lessons are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these events are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.

It is really gratifying to see the number of well produced world standard cookbooks that are starting to be published in South Africa. Prickly pears & pomegranates is top of that pile. It not only has a number of scrumptious recipes in it, it is also beautifully photographed and laid out, a great present. Later in the year, Wickedfood cooking school will be using it as our cookbook of the month, watch out for a great evening.

Wickedfood Cooking School

Sunninghill – (011) 234-3252 sunninghill@wickedfood.co.za

Boksburg – (011) 823-5365 boksburg@wickedfood.co.za

Runs cooking classes throughout the year at its purpose-built cooking studios. Classes are run in the mornings and evenings 7 days a week (subject to a minimum of 12 people). The venue is also popular for corporate events and private functions – team building cooking classes, birthdays, kitchen teas, and dinner parties with a difference.

Our classes are hands-on, where every person gets to participate in the preparation of the dishes. They are also a lot of fun where you not only learn new skills, but get to meet people with similar interests. For corporate groups and teambuilding cooking classes these classes are a novel way of creating staff interaction or entertaining clients.