FISH & MUSSELS EN PAPILLOTE
Swartland winemaker Eben Sadie is one of many producers turning to "hardcore Mediterranean varieties" to better deal with the effects of a warming climate, writes Jane Parkinson.
SERVES 4
1 fennel bulb, fronds reserved
125 ml white, wine
20 mussels scrubbed, beards removed
6 large garlic cloves, finely sliced
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
4 × 180 g fillets of bass grouper, blue-eye trevalla or hapuka, skin on
3 boiled or baked boiling (waxy) potatoes
(such as kipfler), broken roughly
2 handfuls of fennel fronds and/or flat-leaf (Italian) parsley leaves, torn
1 large lemon, sliced
2 tablespoons small capers
50 g crème fraîche
1 egg white, lightly whisked
STAPLES
Extra-virgin olive oil, lemon, salt and pepper
Cook the whole fennel bulb in simmering salted water for 30 minutes. Drain and chill to firm up, then cut lengthways, yielding 4 slices about 1.5 cm thick. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 220°C fan-forced.
Cut 4 lengths of baking paper into 45 cm lengths. Heat the wine in a large saucepan over a high heat. Add the mussels, cover and cook for a few minutes, then uncover and lift out the mussels as they open. Once all are cooked, remove any stray beards, then remove the top shells from all but 4, leaving those whole for presentation. Reduce the mussel liquor to about 80 ml, then strain.
Add the garlic cloves and oil to a small frying pan over a high heat and fry until lightly golden, 4–5 minutes. Remove from the heat and immediately add the mussel liquor to prevent the garlic burning.
Heat a large frying pan over a high heat for 2–3 minutes. Season the fish with salt and pepper and coat with oil, then fry, on the skin side only, for 3 minutes. Transfer each fillet to a sheet of baking paper, skin side up, so they sit in the middle of one half of each sheet.
Slip a slice of fennel and some potato under each fillet, then season with salt. Stuff some fennel fronds and/or parsley next to the fish, and a slice of lemon on top. Add the mussels, then sprinkle with the capers and fried garlic, with the oily liquid. Spoon the crème fraîche over and squeeze on some lemon.
Brush the egg white on the paper around each fillet, then fold the top over to meet the other end. Roll the edges tightly in on themselves from one end to the other, to form a calzone-like parcel. Lay the parcels on a baking tray with a little space in between, as the air will need air to circulate around them.
Bake for about 12 minutes, then rest unopened for 2 minutes on serving plates. Cut open with scissors at the table.
Make it different
Snapper en papillote. Use this technique for a platesized snapper, about 450 g (1 lb) to serve one person, but bake for about 20 minutes before resting for 5 minutes.
You can also use other types of fish, including other shellfish, though the timing will naturally vary.
The emblematically Greek flavours of lemon and oregano are the ones I use most at home for both chicken and lamb. Taking the time to boil and squash the potatoes makes such a difference, as you expose the fluffy interior, allowing all those ragged edges to become golden and crisp, while the skins become so glassy and crunchy. SERVES 4–6
300 g fine salt
3.5 litres water
1 × 1.6 kg chicken
8 large, creamy yellow-fleshed potatoes (such as Dutch cream), scrubbed 2½ tablespoons dried Greek oregano (rigani) 1 onion, sliced 2.5 cm thick
2 lemons, sliced
1 garlic bulb, skin on, cloves separated and smashed
STAPLES
Extra-virgin olive oil, salt and pepper
Dissolve the salt in the water, heating if necessary, but cool before adding the chicken. Immerse the chicken in the brine, making sure the cavity fills with the water. Weigh the chicken down with a plate to keep it submerged, then refrigerate overnight or for 12 hours.
Once brined, drain and dry well. Refrigerating the chicken uncovered for a few hours or another day will yield very crisp skin, or just pat dry thoroughly and stand at room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan-forced.
Meanwhile, add the potatoes to a saucepan of cold salted water. Bring to the boil and cook for 20–25 minutes, until tender. Drain, then squash the potatoes so they split and flatten.
Rub the chicken with oil. Sprinkle half the oregano over and season with pepper. Arrange the onion in a roasting tin, to make a trivet, and crown with the chicken. Surround with the potatoes, lemon and garlic. Season the potatoes, scatter with the remaining oregano and drizzle with oil. Roast for 1 hour 10 minutes.
Rest the chicken for 15 minutes before serving.
Make it faster
You can skip the brining altogether and roast the chicken as is.
Make it different
Boost the brine with drained sauerkraut, kimchi, olives or any other pickling liquid. Just replace 600 ml of the water with whatever pickling liquid you have, then halve the salt in the recipe.
MATCH WITH
2020 Santolin Gladysdale Chardonnay, $45
With fruit sourced from a single vineyard in the Upper Yarra Valley, this wine shows aromas of stone fruit and grilled nuts with delicious minerality and flavours of white nectarine and grapefruit. It's a truly harmonious pairing to this dish.
santolinwines.com.au
SERVES 4–6
250 g caster (superfine) sugar juice of ½ lemon
1 vanilla bean, split in half (optional) 300 ml water
800 g rhubarb stalks, trimmed and cut into 8 cm lengths
2 tablespoons demerara sugar
1 egg white, beaten
SWEET GALETTE PASTRY
250 g plain (all-purpose) flour, plus extra for dusting
60 g icing (confectioners’) sugar 100 g chilled butter, diced
2 egg yolks, beaten
2 tablespoons iced water a pinch of salt flakes
HAZELNUT BASE
100 g toasted hazelnuts
50 g caster (superfine) sugar
Add the caster sugar, lemon juice, vanilla bean and seeds and water to a large saucepan over a high heat until the liquid is simmering and the sugar is dissolved. Add the rhubarb and reduce the heat to very low. Poach, turning gently, until the rhubarb is glossy and deepens in colour, about 5 minutes. (The rhubarb will not be totally cooked, as it will cook again in the galette.) Refrigerate the rhubarb in the syrup until thoroughly chilled. Once cool, thoroughly drain off the syrup, reserving the syrup.
For the pastry, tip the flour onto a benchtop and add the sugar and butter. Work in with your fingers to form a coarse crumb, then incorporate the egg yolks, iced water and salt. Lightly knead with the heel of your hand until the pastry comes together into a soft dough. Flatten into a thick disc between two sheets of baking paper and rest in the fridge for 1 hour. Roll the rested pastry out on a lightly floured surface, or between two sheets of baking paper, to a rough 40 cm (16 in) round, then trim to a neat 36 cm (14 in) circle. Transfer to a baking tray lined with baking paper and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes.
Preheat the oven to 200°C fan-forced.
For the base, pulse the hazelnuts and sugar in a food processor until coarsely chopped. Scatter over the rested pastry, leaving a 3 cm border all round. Arrange the rhubarb on top, in any pattern you like. You can cut on an angle and make chevrons, or be more organic – in this instance, I like a pattern. Once the surface is covered with rhubarb, fold the pastry edges in, crimping to seal. Brush the pastry edges with egg white, then scatter the demerara sugar over the exposed pastry and rhubarb.
Bake until the pastry is golden and the rhubarb is cooked, about 25 minutes. Serve hot, with the reserved rhubarb syrup.
Pair with
Custard, cream, ice cream or crème fraiche.
MATCH WITH
2022 Heritage Estate Muscat Bianco Secco, $32
A striking lychee aroma, an intense palate of bergamot and residual citrus, a dry but sweet fruit blush, and natural balanced acidity reflect the sweet, tart, tangy flavour of the rhubarb galette.
heritageestate.wine
“WE JUST don’t get rain anymore.” Sure, this might sound like some holiday destination marketing spiel (at least in the UK it would), but instead it’s the sobering reality of climate change for Eben Sadie and his fellow winemakers in South Africa’s Swartland. A 40-minute drive north of Cape Town, Swartland is an expansive, hot and dry region that was traditionally a mecca for wheat production. Today, it’s the hub of some of the most fascinating and delectable wines in the world. But, like wine regions the world over, changes need to be made in Swartland to account for the effects of global warming.
Sadie is one of Swartland’s most famous and respected names, and during his trip to the UK earlier this year he hosted a masterclass in the plush and historic confines of wine merchant Berry Bros. & Rudd in London. There, he presented a vertical tasting of two wines, the white blend Palladius and the red blend Columella. It wasn’t your average ‘let’s see how these wines have developed’ tasting because Sadie has made serious changes to his wine styles, not only in his relentless quest for elegance and finesse but to stave off the negative effects of an ever-drier and ever-warmer climate in this pocket of the winemaking world.
What became very clear, very quickly, at the tasting, was that the 2019 13.5% Palladius was almost unrecognisable when tasted alongside the 14.4% 2007 version (and not because of the age difference). For the earlier vintage, he picked ripe and used new wood. But, he explained, he soon discovered a problem: “Swartland was way too warm for these grapes.” On their own, at least.
The 2019 by comparison wasn’t oily or buttery. It was breezy, salty, sour, tangy and refreshing, and although some of the original grapes remain in the blend, they are tempered with the likes of palomino, verdelho and colombard. Meanwhile, his red, Columella, has also undergone significant changes; the 2004 cépage was just syrah and mourvèdre but by the time we come around to 2018, a whole range of other grapes have been added into the mix. Admittedly, there is a less dramatic taste evolution with Columella than with Palladius, nonetheless they are changes that needed to be made, because the grapes that will survive best and stress less in the future here are the ones Sadie refers to as “hardcore Mediterranean varieties”.
A turning point, it seems, was the brutal drought in Swartland from 2017 to 2019. Adding a positive spin to this heartbreaking time, Sadie adds: “It made us better farmers, because we would never have arrived at this point without it.”
What is ‘this point’? It’s a huge overhaul in variety experimentation and planting. With 28 new varieties across three sites, Sadie explains that the isohydric varieties shut down at 10am when it
gets warm, so the vines get drawn into a negative pressure cycle. Anisohydric varieties on the other hand, start burning off acid to manage the stress.
The new hopefuls he has brought in include tinta barroca, alicante bouschet, counoise, pontac, assyrtiko, grillo and catarratto. Other important varieties for him (and his future) include picpoul – “it’s been amazing, one of the most exciting wines I’ve ever made” – and vermentino – “I can’t believe its performance”.
As for the reds, Sadie explained the change is less dramatic because “moving grenache with us from 13% to 13.5% isn’t the same as say, chardonnay in Chambolle moving from 13% to 13.5%.” And, while syrah is anecdotally thought to be a grape that loves the heat, this isn’t right. “Everyone thinks [syrah likes hot climates] because it is grown in the sun, but it’s a complete misnomer. That’s why they blend syrah in the south of France, because south of Avignon syrah falls apart, so you need the likes of grenache and mourvèdre to help it. For us, there’s less and less syrah coming through now, and the migration out of this grape is a response to the climate.”
Australia of course, has been wise to the benefits of "hardcore Mediterranean varieties" for some time. The likes of Jim Barry doing so well with assyrtiko in the Clare Valley, or Steve Pannell’s excellent aglianico from McLaren Vale, serve as inspiration across the world. Let’s face it, warmer wine regions are all coming to the same conclusion now – hardcore Mediterranean varieties are the future.