Chef Janet Telian co-founded Cape Town’s Savoy Cabbage restaurant and now cooks exclusively for guests of Somerset House Guest House – but only on request. When staying at Somerset House, Janet made us this Biltong Salad using biltong from Somerset East’s Matador Butchery and pairing it with a Paul Cluver Riesling.
Photographs by Brandon de Kock.
More of Janet’s recipes can be found in The Savoy Cabbage Cookbook (available from Savoy Cabbage).
And to read about Janet and her dinners at Somerset House, see the March 2015 issue of Getaway magazine.
How to make Somerset East biltong salad
Serves 4
Salad ingredients
- 4 x 1cm thick slices of pumpkin or butternut, peeled
- Oil to taste
- 3ml roughly crushed coriander seeds
- 4 thick slices of aubergine, unpeeled
- 120g shavings of moist biltong, as long and thin as possible
- 100-125g mixed salad leaves
Use Chinese cabbage leaves, rocket leaves and other tasty salad leaves such as black mustard, radicchio, etc. as available. If only iceberg lettuce is available, pep up the crunch with finely shredded white or green cabbage.
Ingredients for the garlic croutons
- 4 slices of day-old bread without crust, torn into pieces
- 50ml olive oil
- 1 clove of garlic, crushed
Ingredients for the dressing
- 1 egg hard-cooked, grated
- 3tsp Dijon mustard
- 60ml olive oil
- 30ml or more of freshly squeezed lemon juice
- Salt, pepper and cayenne pepper to taste
- 15ml chopped parsley
To garnish, add peppadews if you like more colour.
Cooking instructions
- To make the garlic croutons: heat the garlic in the oil until just warm. Turn the bread pieces in this fragrant oil and then bake the croutons at 180 oC till crisp and golden.
- To prepare the vegetables: brush the pumpkin or butternut with a little oil, and put into a roasting tin with a few tablespoons of water. When nearly tender, scatter 3ml roughly of crushed coriander seeds over them, and then complete roasting. Brush the aubergines with oil and roast until tender. If preferred, the oiled vegetable slices may be cooked slowly on a ridged griddle pan to achieve characteristic scoring. It’s important to sprinkle the coriander seeds very close to the end of cooking the pumpkin or butternut.
- To make the dressing: combine all the ingredients – it should be quite piquant.
- To make the salad: break the leaves into convenient pieces (not too small).
- Toss salad leaves in some of the dressing and pile on the serving plates. Arrange the roasted pumpkin or butternut and aubergines on the plates with biltong and croutons all over. Drizzle with rest of dressing. Garnish with peppadews (optional).
