Bocconcini | WhaleTales Blog by Chris von Ulmenstein

I have been interested in the debate about which mozzarella is better – that which is made from buffalo milk, as is made by Wayne Rademeyer at Buffalo Ridge in Wellington, or that which is made from cow’s milk by Puglia Cheese in Cape Town. My search for Stracciatella mozzarella, the most delicious spreadable mozzarella I first tasted at the Eat In Night Market a few months ago, led me on Friday to buy it directly at Puglia Cheese in Montague Gardens, and to meet the charming co-owner Ursula Ostuni.

Puglia Cheese was started as a joint venture by Davide Ostuni and Fabio Fatelli, both originally from the Puglia region in Italy, a year ago. In a short time they have made their mark, in having won first place in the SA Dairy Championships Mozzarella category for their Burrata, and a second place for their Bocconcini, as well as a quality award for their whole Mozzarella range. One of Puglia Cheese’s biggest champions is restaurateur Giorgio Nava, who uses their mozzarella at 95 Keerom Street, Mozzarella Bar, and at Caffé Milano. Initially he went to all his Italian restaurant colleagues in Cape Town, showing them the Puglia Cheese products, and now the company has clients such as Aubergine, Spar, Primi Piatti, Meloncino, Il Cappero, the One&Only Cape Town, the Mount Nelson Hotel, Giovanni’s, Nonna Lina, The Power & Glory, Wild Peacock Food Emporium, and all Melissa’s deli branches, just to mention some of the local outlets. They distribute to the Garden Route as well. Distribution via key Spar, Checkers, and Pick ‘n Pay branches is on the cards, which means that the company will move to bigger premises soon.

The star Mozzarella maker is Cosimo, who comes from Bari in Puglia, and does not speak English. Ursula said he is the ‘key man’ at Puglia Cheese, being dedicated in almost single-handedly, and by hand, producing 300kg of cheese per day with only an assistant. Hygiene is important, and I had to don a hair net, special shoe covers and a white jacket to go into the production room. Production starts at 7h00, and finishes by lunchtime, and in the afternoon the products are packed and labelled, ready for delivery of the precious perishable products. A machine is used to boil the cows’ milk, which comes from a Cape Town and a Stellenbosch farm, to which rennet, a curdling agent, is added, creating the foundation of all Mozzarella cheese. Then Cosimo puts the curdled milk into 90°C boiling water, and with a wooden batten he shapes the cheese into ‘dough’, making it more and more pliable, out of which he makes ‘knots’, or the unique Nodino mozzarella not made by anyone else in South Africa, and is a typical Puglian mozzarella. The same mozzarella dough is used to create a pocket into which straciatella mozzarella is added and then closed, to make Burrata. A machine is used to make Fior de Latte and Bocconcini, but still needs Cosimo’s interaction with it in the production process. Ursula told me that it took fourteen years for Cosima to learn the art of mozzarella making.

Davide grew up in Italy, and came to Cape Town on holiday, meeting Ursula at a party. She joined Davide in Italy, and said that it took some time for his mama to accept that Ursula would not be going away. They went to London, where a friend of Davide’s worked, and he started as a waiter, worked at the Ritz Hotel, was a model, and started to learn to cook, but did not become a chef. Ursula and Davide were in the United Kingdom for about thirteen years, and had five Italian restaurants in this period. The last one they owned was located in St Albans and was called Carpe Diem, using only genuine Italian products, mostly imported and some home-made. Once their first child was born, Davide moved into food-broking. Having children, Ursula wanted to return home to South Africa, and they chose to live in Cape Town. Both missed genuine mozzarella, only finding tough ‘tennis ball’ type local mozzarella here. This led Davide to start making mozzarella, and establishing Puglia Cheese with his friend. A future collaboration with Giorgio Nava, in creating more Mozzarella Bars, is on the cards. Ursula praises Nava, for his ability to use mozzarella in traditional recipes, but to adapt them by serving them with flair and elegance.

Mozzarella is made with buffalo milk in southern Italy, around Naples, and in central Italy, but the east coast and the rest of Italy makes mozzarella with cow’s milk, given that the milk is freely available, and that the mozzarella produced from it has a longer shelf life, resulting in about 80 % of Italian mozzarella being made with cow’s milk. Mozzarella made from buffalo milk is rich and creamy when fresh, but goes hard and sour after two days. Its ‘dough’ is not soft and pliable, and therefore one cannot make mozzarella knots and balls from it. Local mozzarella currently sold in supermarkets is likely to contain preservatives, to have a longer shelf-life.

Ursula emphasised that mozzarella should be taken out of the fridge an hour before eating it, to enjoy it at room temperature. Different mozzarella cheeses have different expiry dates: Fior di Latte (Bocconcini and balls) 18 days (in water), Burrata (in water) 9 days, Stracciatella 9 days, Nodini (in water) 9 days, and Treccia (in water) 9 days. Should it be older than the expiry dates, it can be used for pizza, which is what Italian mamas would do. Most food lovers associate mozzarella with Caprese salad, and therefore sales are high in summer. Puglia Cheese is happy that food bloggers and writers are providing creative recipes for the use of Mozzarella in winter dishes too. Ricotta cheese is also made at Puglia Cheese, and they are experimenting with the addition of peppercorns, chilli peppers, and walnuts for new products in future.

Disclosure: I was given a ball each of Burrata and Bocconcini to try at home, when I bought the Stracciatella mozzarella.

Puglia Cheese, Unit 5, The Gables, Prime Park, Printer’s Way, Montague Gardens. Tel (021) 551-8538. www.pugliacheese.co.za. Facebook. Monday – Friday.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter @WhaleCottage

I experienced one of the cleverest wine marketing ideas when I had lunch at Glen Carlou Restaurant on Friday. The Restaurant Manager Janine came to each table with a washed bunch of freshly picked Malbec grapes, so that one can experience the taste of a more unusual grape variety. This brought the vineyard, in which we could see the Glen Carlou staff picking grapes below us, straight to the table, and stimulated an interest in tasting the wines after the lunch, even though I had decided against wine-tasting initially.

Glen Carlou has been owned by Donald Hess for the last six years, and he is an entrepreneur with international interests, such as we have seen at Delaire Graff and Grande Provence – international owners of multiple properties around the world, and lovers of and investors in art. Janine reminded every table about the Hess Collection art gallery, which is behind closed doors in an airconditioned room, containing some interesting works of art – not the place to bring one’s teenage daughter! Hess has wine interests in Argentina, California, Australia and in South Africa. The Hess Family Estates had its first beginnings in Switzerland in 1844, when Johann Heinrich Hess founded a brewery in Berne. The current owner Donald Hess grew the company, in that it diversified into mineral water, Valser Water becoming Switzerland’s leading water brand. He loves wine and art, and married these two passions with his first wine estate purchase on Mount Veeder in the Napa Valley in 1978. Then followed wine estates in Argentina (the highest vineyard in the world), in Australia, and then in South Africa, with the purchase of Glen Carlou (making wines since 1985). Hess is one of the world’s major collectors of contemporary art representing the last fifty years, and his collection includes 1000 works by 65 international artists. Hess only acquires pieces that challenge or touch him personally. “When I have seen an art piece which keeps me awake over several nights, I know that this art piece has touched me deeply and this is one of my most important criteria to buy an art work”, he says in a profile on the Hess Art Collection.

The building is an all-in-one wine cellar (on the lower level) and one can see very little of the wine production side, save for a glass floor section allowing one to see some barrels below, tasting room, art gallery and restaurant. One enters a lovely air conditioned room, which has the wine tasting counter closest to the door, and the rest of the space is taken up by a very spacious restaurant, with a small lounge section too. It has a homely thatched roof ceiling. The terrace has shading so that one can sit outside and enjoy the lovely view onto the vineyards below and the Paarl Mountains in the distance. I could have sworn that I saw a little buck dashing from one vineyard to the other. There is attractive white garden furniture outside, with a glass top and aluminium table. The cork placemats and the old-fashioned wooden salt and pepper grinders seemed out of place with the international character of the wine estate (Peugeot is very in, I have noticed on my restaurant travels), and there is no table cloth, yet there is a material serviette, into which is rolled two forks and two knives, on the assumption that one will have a starter and a main course. Two big glass containers contain olive oil (from House of Olives down the road) and balsamic vinegar (from Serena, according to the waiter).

I was seated by Janine, who was very friendly, but I felt her Capri pants to be out of character with the stature of this Hess winery. The chef Hennie van der Merwe has been at Glen Carlou for about two years, and previously owned The Red Hen restaurant on Wildebraam outside Swellendam. He has also worked at Umami in Stellenbosch, on the QE2, and on the Queen Mary. I was surprised (and impressed) that I was welcomed by Georgie Prout, the Public Relations Manager, who recognised me from the Winestyle launch at Warwick a few months ago, she said. She was very helpful in providing information about the other Hess wine farms.

The menu is presented in a black leather menu holder, and in fact there are two menus. While I had a look through the menus, introduced two weeks ago, the waiter brought two bread rolls (looked like mosbolletjies to me, but topped with sesame seeds), which again did not match the stature of the wine estate, in my opinion. Each item on the menu has a Glen Carlou wine recommendation. As I was just passing through, I ordered two starters, the first being a Caprese salad with Bocconcini (an imported buffalo mozzarella, I was told), ‘baby plum tomatoes’, tiny drops of basil pesto, and rocket – the chef seems to like rocket, as both starters had lots of it on the plate, and it had a really bitter taste (R40). It was served with two tiny triangles of toast (what is it with tiny toast triangles? I had them at Mange Toute as well), which were not enough to eat with the cheese. I would have preferred the basil fresh and not in pesto form. Much more exciting was the seared duck breast served with duck liver mousse, and I loved the orange honey sauce that was served with it (R60). I thought the rocket and grapefruit distracted from and clashed with the lovely duck and sauce, both being too bitter, even though they added colour to the starter. I would like to see this dish become a main course, so good was the duck and sauce. The duck liver mousse was on another tiny toast triangle. Starters cost between R 40 – R65, and other options include smoked trout and asparagus, mussels, and an interesting sounding trio of Kudu carpaccio, steak tartar with poached quail egg and rooibos smoked springbok loin.

Main courses are reasonable in price, costing R85 – R105, and include roasted pork fillet and mushroom fricassee, sirloin steak, roasted quail, kingklip, duck, and trout. Georgie told me that Chef Hennie is known for his wonderful sauces. The second menu has further options, mainly salads and burgers, costing R60 – R85. The cappuccino (R16) took long to bring to the table, but was in a large cup, and very foamy. It was while I was waiting for the coffee that Janine came with the bunch of grapes, so it served as a dessert. Dessert choices are Malva pudding, Crème Brulee, and chocolate mousse, all costing a most reasonable R30, ice cream at R12 a scoop, and a Boland cheese platter at R85 – they are not on the menu one receives on arrival, but on a menu list which includes side orders, drinks other than wines, and the Kiddies Menu.

I had a large jug of farm water and lemon to drink, and was surprised at the saltiness of the water. The waiter said something about putting lemon into the water because of that, but I did not understand this. The wines are listed in a similar black leather holder. I was very impressed that there was no mark-up on the Glen Carlou wines on the winelist at all! This makes them very reasonable to order : Sauvignon Blanc (R18/R65), Tortoise Hill White (R12/R42), Chardonnay (R25/R90), Quartz Stone Chardonnay (R25/R90), Pinot Noir (R36/R130), Tortoise Hill Red (R16/R49), Syrah (R34/R120), Zinfandel (R36/R130), Cabernet Sauvignon (R25/R90), Grand Classique (R34/R120), Gravel Quarry Cabernet Sauvignon (R80/R375) and The Welder (R22/R89). In addition, one can buy Hess wines from Argentina (Colomè), Peter Lehmann (Australia) and the Hess Collection from California, ranging in price from R140 – R 395, at Glen Carlou. I was encouraged via Twitter to try Glen Carlou’s Zinfandel, and having been to a Blaauwklippen Zinfandel tasting a week ago, I tried a small glassfull, and liked it very much. Janine wanted me to know that the Zinfandel is seen as a ‘hobby wine’, and only 6000 bottles are produced. She said that the Hess Zinfandel from Napa has a very different character to that of Glen Carlou, even though both have 15 % alcohol. I then tried a small glassful of the 2006 Shiraz, and it is one of my favourites. The winemaker is a low profile Arco Laarman, whose name I did not know – Janine said he worked alongside the previous cellarmaster David Finlayson, and has been at Glen Carlou for ten years.

The invoice came in a soft black leather holder, and I was irritated when the waiter came to my table with the credit card machine – I had not put down my card, was still having my grapes and water, did not show signs of leaving, and had no intention to pay by card.

As I drive past Glen Carlou whenever I go to Franschhoek, I will certainly pop in for lunch again. I used to love their prawn salad, but that dish is not on the new menu. There are a number of interesting dishes to try at Glen Carlou on future visits.

Glen Carlou Restaurant, Simondium Road (R 45), Klapmuts. Tel (021) 875-5528. www.glencarlou.co.za (The new menu is not yet on the website. Innovative is that recipes are listed on the website, but they are for dishes no longer on the menu). Tuesday – Sunday.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage