Review: Veld to Fork, Slow Food from the heart of the Karoo

(Random Struik, R250)

Gordon Wright runs an award-winning restaurant and guest house in Graaff-Reinet and has put together a gorgeous cookbook of 82 dishes that will simply make you want to cook and share with family and friends.

Start by getting to know the author before learning more about the beautiful Karoo, Graaff-Reinet and its people. Five chapters of mouth-watering recipes follow and cover soups, meat, sides and vegetables, “Dessert in the desert”, preserves and baked treats.

Veld to Fork is filled with stunning photographs and each tells a story, whether about the featured dish, the incredible landscape or the quaint Karoo towns and their welcoming locals.

Here are a few selections to whet your appetite:

Nourishing soups include seven-bean classic Karoo boontjiesop, Gordon’s style; carrot soup with orange and ginger, Elsanne’s beetroot, onion and garlic soup, and one I’m dying to try – blue cheese, biltong and port soup.

The chapter on meat covers Karoo lamb and mutton, Nguni beef, free-range chicken, venison and other game, as well as charcuterie and deli cuts.

Try your hand at rustic braised lamb shanks with beans, spade-flambéed sirloin with mushrooms and asparagus, slow-roasted basil chicken, venison salami, simple sausages, home-made smoked bacon or the author’s own “farma ham (prosciutto di Karoo)”.

Sides and vegetables, desserts, preserves and baked treats include such gems as Rose’s decadent savoury and sweet Christmas tart, malva pudding, baked pancake roll with pear and brandy sauce, Auntie Maureen’s marvellous muffins, Natalie’s lekker-hot bottled chilli relish and easy onion marmalade.

* Gordon and Rose Wright own and run the internationally renowned Andries Stockenström guest house & Gordon’s Restaurant in Graaff-Reinet.