Brad Ball, Master Chef at Bistro 1682 shares his recipe for Slow Braised Lamb Shoulder. Impress your friends with this fabulous winter warmer.

For The Shoulder

 

Ingredients:

 

·          1 de-boned and rolled lamb shoulder

·          1 tablespoon Tomato paste

·          2 onions, chopped

·          2 carrots, chopped

·          3 celery sticks, chopped

·          2 leeks, chopped

·          1 head garlic

·          500ml whole peeled tomatoes

·          1.5l red wine

·          1l veal or beef stock

·          Cold water, enough to cover the shoulder

·          2 Sprig rosemary

·          2 Sprig thyme

 

METHOD:

 

·          Seal the shoulder in a hot pan until brown, set aside in a deep casserole dish.

·          Deglaze the pan with some of the red wine and pour it out over the browned lamb

·          Add some butter end fry the vegetables until brown, do not burn them

·          Add the tomato paste, cook it out for 2-3 minutes on a low heat

·          Add the remaining red wine and reduce until thick and dark, this stage is important as it is this reduction that gives you a good end result

·          Add the stock to the red wine reduction. Mix and pour over the lamb

·          Add the herbs to the lamb

·          Add enough cold water to cover the lamb

·          Cover with foil, braise in a 160ºC oven for  5 hours

·          Remove the shoulder from the sauce and allow it to rest.

·          Slice it into 1 inch slices

·          Strain the sauce and reduce it until thick and glossy. Check the seasoning

·          Now rest the sliced lamb in the sauce, keep it warm but don’t reduce the sauce anymore.

·          Check for seasoning

 

For The Roast Garlic and Shallot Puree

 

Ingredients:

 

·          3 large shallots

·          1 head of garlic

·          1 sprig of thyme

 

 

 

 

METHOD:

 

·          Roast these at 160ºC for 20 mins in a tray covered with foil

·          Peel them and puree until smooth, for a finer finish, pass it through a sieve

·          Season with salt and pepper

 

At the bistro, I serve this with pomme dauphine. A mixture of finely mashed potatoes and choux pastry which is then deep fried to give you a light fluffy potato pastry. This lamb would be just as good served with a creamy mash potato and some sautéed fine beans and baby spinach.

 

 

This was done a little differently to most food and wine pairings. We turned the equation on its head and started out with wine as our point of departure rather than the food.

JD decided to stick with something suited to the winter season and opted to select the Catharina. As true fans of this red will no doubt be aware, the blend changes from year to year – either in terms of the percentages or the various components used. One thing that never alters is that the Catharina is representative of the best of the vintage – and in 2007 that meant a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Just a splash of Cabernet Franc was added – much like that final sprinkling of salt & pepper on a plate of food. That touch of seasoning rounds the dish off well!

On the subject of seasoning, it obviously fell to BistroSixteen82 Chef Brad Ball (more about him in the next newsletter…) to come up with a suitable match for the Catharina. “Lamb,” was his unequivocal reply. Specifically a slow-braised lamb shoulder with roast garlic and shallot puree, caramelised baby onions with thyme and potato dauphine.

“It’s an incredible combination that really works superbly. We’ve tried a few things but nothing beats the flavour and soft texture of the lamb shoulder. And I’ve also found that it’s all about that little puddle of sauce on the plate…” And that ‘puddle’ is the result of the juices from the cooking process being combined with some Catharina and being reduced to up the intensity of the sauce. It’s finally finished off with a knob of butter. “You don’t need a lot of the sauce on the plate because it is quite intense, but it really makes the food and wine pairing sing.”

There’s a story behind everything… and the tale of the ‘grape sculpture’ which hangs over Steenberg’s tasting counter is an extraordinary one. Did you know that it took two weeks just to fit it into place? Or that there are 2 700 individual grapes making up the installation?

Architect Richard Perfect and his associate Jan Desseyn were not only tasked with restructuring the existing Steenberg winery but also handling the interior design.

“It was quite an extraordinary brief from owner Graham Beck – because of its simplicity and the fact that Mr Beck virtually gave us carte blanche. It was ideal on one hand because we could drive our vision for the project to include even the soft furnishings and artwork but it was a tremendous challenge on the other because there were no restrictions,” Perfect said.

The grape sculpture (it’s most definitely NOT a chandelier…) comprises an astonishing 2 700 individually moulded resin grapes, white and red. “The artist Wilma Coetzee did an amazing job – as did Carole Carr-Harris of Divali Natural Lighting who did the integration of the customised cable lights and worked hand-in-hand with Wilma on the technical spec.”

The ceiling had to be specially reinforced to carry the weight of the sculpture, all of it hidden from display. Ensuring that the resin was the right colour representative of the white and red grapes took numerous test castings. Then there was the sandblasting of the outer surface to ensure the resemblance to the yeast bloom which occurred naturally on a grape was authentic.

A life-size scale model was constructed for Coetzee to play with the arrangement of grapes and the ratio of white to red grapes. Then each resin grape had to be drilled and threaded onto stainless steel cables. There are two kilometres of steel cabling in the grape bunch!

Everything was meticulously planned and mapped out on a computer drawing to ensure that there were no errors when stringing up the grape strands, as mentioned, a process that took two weeks. We can all agree with Richard when he says: “It almost never fails to provoke a reaction,”.

JD Pretorius – our winemaker, an avid photographer in his spare time, has captured some beautiful images around the farm…

Probably the most prominent face of Steenberg is that of our winemaker, JD Pretorius. It’s pretty recognisable – even when he does forget to renew his razorblades every now and then, but apparently the designer stubble look hasn’t died just yet…

With his laid-back, easy-going nature and surfing and mountain biking lifestyle, you’d be forgiven for pegging JD as a born-and-bred Capetonian. Not so. “I’m a boytjie from Bloem,” he admits. Which begs the question: how does a Free Stater end up as a winemaker? With his plant pathologist father having played an unwittingly large role in his choice, JD always knew he “wanted to do something outdoors – I couldn’t see myself cooped up in an office all day.” Pretorius Snr. had studied at Stellenbosch University and counted Beyers Truter as an old friend, so winemaking was one of the careers under consideration – especially since food and wine had always been part of his childhood.

Although JD grudgingly concedes that the first six months of his BSc degree in oenology and viticulture was “difficult because of all the science”, prompting him to consider switching to marketing, once he realised he “could pass that stuff”, he became really excited and keen to learn more.

His three years as a Matie saw him work shifts in the tasting rooms at Muratie and Rustenberg to gain experience as well as earn a bit of pocket money. Intense harvest stints at De Toren and Graham Beck in Robertson fleshed out his practical knowledge. (He still blushes at the teasing of his Steenberg colleagues about the nickname earned at Rustenberg…”sex appeal”.)

After graduating, JD decided to gain a bit of international experience and in 2008 travelled to California where he worked at Kendall Jackson under former Bellingham winemaker, Graham Weerts. It was also where he first heard about the winemaker job at Steenberg. “With the time difference between the States and South Africa it meant that my application was waiting for John Loubser literally within hours of him having advertised the job!”

In spite of his youth and relative inexperience, JD was given six months to prove himself. Within a matter of months it was clear to cellar master Loubser that JD was up to the task. “John has been an incredible mentor. He’s allowed me enough leeway to determine what I’m capable of but is always there as a sounding board. If I drop any balls while juggling them, he’s there to catch them! His body of knowledge is awesome. It’s quite something to do barrel and base wine tastings with John.”

“And I never expected to walk into the Steenberg cellar and start issuing orders. It’s not my style. There are three guys who are my Triple A team – Andrew, Alfred and Abie who have 16, 11 and six years’ experience at Steenberg respectively. I’ve learned so much from them… It’s humbling.”