Latest recipes from La Motte

Apple Tart Recipe (Page 211 of the Cape Winelands Cuisine Cookbook) Good-quality tarts didn’t need raising agents and, as with the Netherlands, the Cape was famous for its fresh and dried fruit tarts. In the Netherlands, apple tart was the favourite, but at the Cape apricot jam tarts and melktert (milk tart) became popular. There...

According to the old Dutch cookbook De Verstandige Kock (1668), warmoes is a variety of stewed or cooked vegetable leaves. Jan van Riebeeck and later C. Louis Leipoldt referred to warmoes in their writings, and the latter was of the opinion that beetroot leaves added something special to this stew. During Jan van Riebeeck’s time,...

The history of the development of mayonnaise is uncertain. Anne Willan gives a plausible explanation for the origins of mayonnaise in her book, Great Cooks and Their Recipes, where she reasons that it originated in France as the name could have come from the Old French for egg yolk (moyeu). Homemade mayonnaise is delicious and...

Vegetable soup has been part of Cape cuisine since the first Dutch settlers arrived here in 1652. Different vegetables, sometimes with and often without meat or bacon, were used to prepare this soup. As was the custom 300 years ago when meat was omitted from soup, olive oil is used and the soup is thickened with finely...

Try this quick and delicious recipe from our Cape Winelands Cuisine cookbook – it is perfect for breakfast, brunch or lunch! Many versions of bacon tart appear in old cookbooks. All the recipes are basically a variation on a salty ‘bread pudding’ made from egg custard, bread and breakfast bacon or ham. This recipe is...

Lamb is such a core ingredient in South Africa and it has been so since the earliest days. Within a few years of Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival at the Cape, there were enough sheep to supply the population with all the mutton they needed. O.F. Mentzel, a German soldier who came to the Cape in...

It is harvest-time in the Winelands – surely the most exciting time of the year on a wine farm. More than wine, harvest-time also offers grapes and must – two lovely seasonal ingredients to cook with. Last year we shared the story of must – its ancient history and how it has probably been introduced...

Jan van Riebeeck planted the first melons at the Cape. In the Netherlands and later at the Cape, the fruit was served thinly sliced and eaten with salt and sometimes with pepper. As an interesting aside, the first melons harvested at the Cape were quite small and, in 1659, Jan van Riebeeck declared that a...

Wentelteefjes (or French Toast) with dried fruit compôte. From our Cape Winelands Cuisine cookbook (page 27). This dish can be traced back more than 2000 years to a Roman chef called Apicius, who cooked for the aristocracy during the time of Christ. Where and when the name French toast was created is uncertain; however, it...

We think bread can be part of a healthy lifestyle. So why not try this recipe for our popular Grandmother’s Bread as per the Cape Winelands Cuisine cookbook (page 15). Mrs Huberte Rupert found this easy bread recipe ca. 1960 on a packet of flour she bought from Haldenwang Bakery in Bird Street, Stellenbosch, and...