Annerkant Die Berg Festival Afrikaans Food & South African Wine Event
About the Annerkant Die Berg Festival
The Annerkant die Berg festival is hosted at various wineries in the Breedekloof Wine Valley. Merwida Vineyards and Du Toitskloof are unique in that they work together during this time in hosting a collaborative event, pairing their wines with delicious food.
Food, Wine and Friends
Because I run my own business, and food is ‘just’ a hobby, I want to make sure I have fun when getting involved in events like this one. And what better way to have fun, than to run the events with friends? The ‘Afrikaners is Plesierig’ event was a collaboration between Merwida Vineyards and Du Toitskloof. Lieza van den Heever is the wine maker at Merwida and Ed Beukes is the Marketing and Export Manager at DTK. Over the last two years, we have partnered up for many events and in the process they have become really good friends.
‘Afrikaners is Plesierig’ - An Afrikaans-inspired Fine Dining Menu
Ed Beukes (DTK) and Lieza van der Merwe (Merida) challenged me to create a fine dining menu based on some South African favourites, focussing particularly on Afrikaans cooking! Being a soutie myself, I at first was not sure why they asked me, but after giving it some thought I came up with -if I say so myself- a pretty epic menu!
Canapé on Arrival: An Englishman walks into a bar and makes a braaibroodjie
Who doesn’t love a braaibroodjie? Every braai needs a braai broodjie. I have many childhood memories of my mom letting me make a fire in an old wheel barrow in our back garden, and roasting marshmallows, making stokbroodjies and of course the all-time favourite, braai broodjies. South Africans love a good Braai Broodjie, which for overseas readers not familiar with it, is like a toasted sandwich made on the braai. And if you’re not familiar with the word braai, this is the word South Africans use for a barbecue. There. Now you know the most important South African (Afrikaans) words in our lexicon.
To make the ultimate braaibroodjie you don’t need a fancy sour dough, is made with gewone Sasko witbrood, and so that is what I did for the canapé that Annerkant die Berg diners received upon arrival. To make it fine dining though, I cut through the white bread slices with a round cookie cutter, making perfectly round disks. With some butter on the outside and some (Roasted Dad tip incoming) mayonnaise on the inside, the regular braaibroodjie was already juiced up, but I wasn’t done yet. For the filling, I added -of course- cheese, but with a hint to my Dutch wife’s heritage, not regular cheese, but good old cumin cheese (komijnekaas)! As a second ingredient, taking my braai broodjie to epic proportions, I added some bobotie mince and caramelised onions. This canapé was a winner with the guests and it went so well with their welcoming drink: the Merwida Cap Classique Blanc de Blancs.
The Second Course: Vis Fabriek
In building out this Afrikaans-inspired menu, I had to dig deep for some Afrikaans terms. I must admit, Afrikaans was never my strong suit in school and I still really struggle with the pronounciation! On the night of the event Ed and Lieza welcomed everyone in Afrikaans, and explained that by asking me to create an Afrikaans-inspired menu, knowing that I’m a soutie, they were basically throwing me another MasterChef challenge. One of the guests asked me if I would explain the dishes in Afrikaans too, but I told them that that wasn’t a good idea: “Julle sal nie weet wat jullie eet nie” and so I continued my explanation in English.
A few weeks before the event, I drove past Access Park in Cape Town and saw the name Vis Fabriek on a sign and knew that that was a good name for one of my dishes on the menu, and so I worked backwards. This dish was made up of not just any fish cake, but one made with slightly smoked pink trout and a roughly cut Russet potato. I dished my viskoekie up with a snoek mousse, some mayonnaise and rocket on top. To finish the dish, I drizzled some olive oil and lemon dressing over the top.
This dish was paired with the Papenkuils Vlue Vyugie Pinotage Rosé 2024 and the Du Toitskloof Pinotage Rosé 2024.
The Third Course: In die Sop
My South African take on an Asian dish: potstickers, fried rice and boerewors bites (from Pick 'n Pay)!
Bertus Basson (who was also a guest judge on MasterChef season 4) hosts the Afrikaans reality series In Die Sop, which is about restaurants that need a makeover. I named my third course after this culinary TV show.
I really enjoy challenging myself to make a good broth, but it is actually very difficult to get right. Broths are easily either under- or overstated and a good broth gets this balance just right. My cooking used to be very Asian-centric as that is what I was most comfortable with. When I was a contestant on MasterChef - I realised it’s actually a problem as the South African heritage is all around us and I wasn’t tapping into it when it came to my cooking.
And still, I love adding Asian influences in my dishes, but I now try to draw from South African elements as well. A great example is when I used Tina’s HOME.BAO potstickers and created my South African inspired dish which included some fried rice, grilled corn and mange tout and good-old South African boerewors bites from Pick ‘n Pay.
For the Annerkant die Berg event, I asked Tina if I could give her I asked her my South African-flavoured pulled lamb (flavoured with coriander and basil) and if she could put them inside potstickers. Together with her team, she hand folded 240 potstickers for the event. I served the potstickers in the broth with some waterblommetjies (also quintessentially South African, but rather than serving them the traditional way -in a stew- I quick-pickled them and then served them in a broth alongside my South African lamb potstickers and finally, added some mint over the top.
This dish was paired with the Merwida Family Vintners Chenin Blanc 2023 and Quest Old Vine Chenin Blanc 2023.
The Fourth Course: the Main Meal - Rys, Vleis en Aartappels
Is there a more Afrikaans main meal than good-old Rys, Vleis en Aartappels? Ek dink nie so nie.
Of course I did give it a fine dining twist: for the rice, I used black rice cooked in a vegetable stock, with spring onions, onions and some lemon to squeeze over top. For the meat I braaied some beef short rib from Frankie Fenner Meat Merchants. After slowly rendering down the fat over the fire, I slow-cooked it in a tomato-based sauce with some Merwide cab sav. I also made some krimpvarkie aartappels (hedgehog potatoes), the way I used to as a child - with a fork.
Although the traditional meal of Rys, Vleis en Aartappels does not actually contain vegetables, I remember the Sunday spread also always including green beans. Of course in my childhood memories, these were overboiled, verlep green beans with no flavour other than tasting like grass. I like to use standard dishes and changing the flavour profile slightly, and so this is what I did for the green beans: with a generous serving of butter, some basil and almonds sprinkled over the top for extra crunch.
The Fifth Course: Poeding
No dinner evening is complete without a good dessert. Thinking about traditional South African deserts, I thought of the soet/suur kombinasie of lemon meringue. This dish was a real homage to my childhood as I wanted to include the core memory of making marshmallows on the braai. I replaced the meringue in the lemon meringue, with blowtorched marshmallows, which took my pallet down memory lane and the sweet balanced so nicely with the lemon curd. I served this lemon meringue-twist with chocolate truffles in dusted with 80% cocoa and an ice cream.
This last dish was paired with the Du Toitskloof Hanepoot Jerepigo 2021.
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About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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