Cooking On Fire: When liquor ignites flavour

I have fond childhood memories of Durban’s Roma Revolving Restaurant. Every visit, my father ordered the Chateaubriand for two. My sister and I sat on the edge of our seats waiting for the show to begin. We watched hypnotised as Roma founder Gino Leopardi, a true entertainer, ignited the beef and brandy in a tower of flame.

While the subtle brandy flavour is exquisite, the real beauty of this dish is the theatre and nostalgia that accompany it.

Flambé is a French cooking technique whereby spirits or liqueur are poured over food and ignited, leaving the subtle essence of the liquor without the lingering flavour of alcohol.

Liquor with a high alcohol content will ignite easily, while lower alcohol beverages, such as beer, wine, and Champagne, are not suitable for flambé, but they are perfectly delicious to cook with.

The Flavour Academy, run by Cafe del Sol, is reviving the craft of cooking with liquor. This year’s workshops in Johannesburg, the Saluté Series, showcases Italian cuisine featuring gin, tequila, whiskey, prosecco, beer, amaretto, and Cafe del Sol’s signature liqueur, limoncello.

The workshops, presented by Cafe del Sol owners Luciana Viljoen (known as Mamma Luciana) and her daughter Chiara, are interactive, hands-on cooking classes in a relaxed kitchen (with plenty of wine).

In 2018, the Flavour Academy workshops featured authentic cuisine from the diverse regions of Italy. In Lazio, the speciality is porchetta Romana, a rolled pork fillet. The Romana region is known for its cappelletti and ravioli, and of course, Naples is renowned for its simple, wood-fired pizza.

“Italians are very proud of where they come from, and specialities from their region. And no matter how many other regions make the same food, it’s never good enough, only their region counts,” says Luciana Viljoen.

Viljoen (born Luciana Treccani) was born in South Africa after her parents and siblings emigrated from Italy.

“My mom and dad were gypsies. Four years in South Africa, three in Italy, come back to South Africa, and that happened seven times,” says Viljoen.

The family often travelled together around Europe. Leaving from a port in Venice, they travelled by boat through the Suez Canal on month-long voyages.

Viljoen learned how to cook authentic Italian meals from her mother: “I would get woken up with this waft of homemade bread. I’d go to the kitchen and she’d say, ‘Come, we’re starting to make gnocchi’.”

Piping hot kitchen at Joburg's Cafe Del Sol Classico

She hand-rolled filled pastas like ravioli and cannelloni, and made big trays of lasagna for people in the neighbourhood to order; and Viljoen followed in her footsteps.

After many years in catering cooking homemade Italian food, Viljoen and her children opened their first restaurant: Cafe del Sol Classico; and their second, Cafe del Sol Botanico, seven years later.

Classico has a glassed kitchen which excites customers as they watch chefs flaming dishes like al salmone vodka and brandy peppercorn fillet. The layout integrates the theatre and drama of flambé with a modern bistro setting.

Classico’s signature pasta sauces feature a dash of liquor for a rich and aromatic flavour. Their flambéed sauces include salmon with vodka in a creamy Napolitana, smokey chorizo with a dash of white wine, zesty limoncello cream sauce, and porcini mushrooms flambéed with whiskey.

The Saluté Series echoes the rich, full-bodied taste of the bistro’s signature dishes, and educates customers on the flavour potential of alcohol: “If you can drink it, you can cook with it,” says Chiara Viljoen.

Seafood risotto with white wine at Cafe Del Sol Classico

Viljoen explains that flambé creates a soft depth of flavour: “Anything with high alcohol has to be cooked off. The only way you can cook off that liquor is by flambéing it. That’s how you get the flavour to stay behind but without the acidity of the alcohol.”

Each workshop includes a starter, main, and dessert involving the chosen liquor of the month.

The workshop on beer featured a starter of beer-battered calamari, a main of moules frites (mussels and chips cooked with beer), and beer chocolate brownies for dessert.

During the whiskey workshop, guests stepped back as they ignited pepper-crusted beef fillet with a splash of Jack Daniels.

At the tequila workshop this August, guests will massage Scottish salmon in tequila for a piquant marinade, and glaze the fish with a rich tequila butter.

Thank God It's Food's Nikita Singh feels the heat

Viljoen advises that white spirits, such as gin, tequila and white wine, be used for delicate meats and fish; while red meat can stand up to dark spirits like brandy, rum and whiskey. “For desserts, it’s always better to use a richer, darker liquor like a dark rum.”

Traditionally, flambé is achieved over a gas stove where the liquor is ignited by the gas flame. However, if you only have an electric stove, you can cheat the same effect by heating the liquor and then ignite with a lighter.

This impressive technique is more than an antiquated novelty of the Julia Child era...

The fusion of flame and liquor can rapidly impart a subtle depth of flavour in modern bistro cuisine. That said, Julia Child did make a mean Crêpes Suzette. DM