Fynbos Flavours: Delicious recipes with fynbos honey
If you live in the Cape and love being in the kitchen, you may have come across the ‘cooking with fynbos’ buzz phrase that’s been infiltrating restaurants and foodie blogs over the past few years.
You may also be slightly daunted by the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of this type of cooking – you’d love to create those wonderful flavours but are not yet sure how to source and prepare the various shrubs and herbs.
Why not start simply by adding that touch of fynbos with honey instead? Fynbos honey is made in beehives nestled amongst the indigenous fynbos of the Western Cape. As the bees make the honey with nectar from fynbos blooms, the honey is richer and darker in colour than most, and takes on a delicate floral flavour.
Try this collection of easy, tasty recipes that use fynbos honey as a key ingredient and give it that distinctive, delicious flavour. Of course, they could all be made with normal honey – but they just wouldn’t be quite the same!
Baklava with pistachios and fynbos honey
by Alida Ryder for Simply Delicious
Ingredients
- 1 pack phyllo pastry
- 250g butter, melted
- 200g pecan nuts
- 200g shelled pistachio nuts
- 1 cup castor sugar
- 1 tbsp ground cinnamon
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- pinch of salt
Vanilla-Fynbos honey syrup
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cups water
- 1/2 cup fynbos honey
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Method
Pre-heat the oven to 180°c.
Brush a large rectangular oven-proof dish with some of the melted butter.
Place the pecan nuts, pistachios, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg into a food processor and blend until the nuts are finely chopped.
Layer 5 layers of phyllo pastry into the dish, brushing each layer with melted butter before placing the next layer on top. Scatter a 1/3 of the nut mixture over the phyllo pastry.
Now, place 3 layers of phyllo, each brushed with butter on top of the nuts. Follow with another 1/3 of the nut mixture. Followed by another 3 layers of phyllo (brushed with butter), the last of the nuts and then top this with the remaining phyllo layers. Brush the top of the phyllo pastry with melted butter and place into the pre-heated oven.
Bake for 20 minutes until the pastry is golden brown and crisp.
While the baklava is baking, combine all the ingredients for the syrup in a small saucepan and allow to simmer until the sugar has dissolved.
The moment the baklava comes out of the oven, pour over the hot syrup and allow to stand at room temperature for 4-6 hours before serving.
Baked pears with fynbos honey and lemon Juice
by Mariana Esterhuizen for WW Taste Mag
Ingredients
- 1 tbsp lemon zest
- 3/4 cup freshly- squeezed lemon juice
- 1 cup fynbos honey
- 8 whole black pepper corns
- 5 bay leaves
- 3 vanilla pods
- 10 large Beurre Bosc pears (I used Florelle pears as these were the only ones available this early in the season)
- For serving: mascarpone cheese or vanilla ice cream
Method
Preheat the oven to 180°C.
Place the lemon zest and juice, honey, peppercorns and bay leaves in a saucepan. Slit the vanilla pods in half lengthways, scrape out the seeds and add them, along with the pods, to the saucepan. Cook, stirring, over a gentle heat until the honey has melted (about 5 minutes).
Slice each pear in half, lengthways, and remove the seeds. Pour half the honey lemon sauce into an ovenproof baking dish and arrange the pear halves in a single layer, cut sides down, on top. Pour the rest of the sauce over them.
Bake for 25 minutes, then turn the oven down to 160°C, remove the baking tray and turn the pear halves over. Scoop some of the sauce over the pears and bake for a further 15 minutes.
Turn the pear halves over again and bake them for 15 more minutes.
Pierce the pears with a skewer to test whether they are done – the flesh should be easily pierced but the fruit should still hold its shape. Remove the pears from the baking dish, pour the remaining sauce into a saucepan and reduce to a syrupy consistency.
Serve the pears at room temperature, with a good dollop of mascarpone cheese or a scoop of vanilla ice cream, drizzled with the syrup.
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Peppadew and fynbos honey salad dressing
by Mariette Crafford for the Expresso Show
Ingredients
- 250 ml peppadew syrup (drained from the preserved peppadews)
- 62,5 ml fynbos honey
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 5 ml coriander leaves, roughly chopped
Method
Heat the peppadew syrup in a saucepan and reduce by half. Add the honey, lemon juice and the coriander leaves. Heat through and then take off the heat. Serve warm or cold.
This dressing is a delicious accompaniment to Mariette Crafford’s lamb salad.
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Rooibos and ginger ice tea with fynbos honey and mint
Adapted from recipe by Sarah Graham at A Foodie Lives Here
Ingredients
- 5 litre jug
- 2 litres boiled water
- 3 rooibos teabags
- 1/4 cup fynbos honey
- 1/4 cup apple juice (or any fruit juice of your choice)
- Juice of half a lemon
- 1 stick of ginger, peeled and ‘bruised’ (just use the edge of a spoon) so that the flavours can escape
- 2-3 sprigs of fresh mint, also bruised
Method
Pour boiling water into the jug over all the ingredients. Let the tea brew for 3-4 minutes before removing the tea bags.
Leave to cool and serve with lots of ice and mint leaves. Add more honey to taste if required.
