The LivingRoom’s Chef Johannes Richter shares the indigenous and local Winter ingredients he’s working with this season. These include ingredients like msobo, guava, local bananas, madumbe, Willowdale truffle, locally reared Kudu and pumpkin.

“It’s a really beautiful time of year here in KwaZulu-Natal, and the local Winter pantry is offering up a host of berries, fruits, and root vegetables. Some of which we grow in our own garden, and others we source from our trusted network of local, like-minded suppliers. The produce we’re getting in is of a very high quality and we’re excited to use these seasonal, indigenous ingredients on our menu,” says Chef Johannes.

Msobo

Msobo are the berries of an herb-like plant that is native to South Africa also known as African nightshade, which grows in abundance within Summerhill’s gardens. When cooking with the sweet berry, the chef looks for an earthy and savoury partner, and this season he’s found it in purple sweet potato. These are used in The LivingRoom’s savoury macaron of msobo, pickled sweet potato chutney and chicken liver parfait.

In line with The LivingRoom’s minimal waste philosophy, the remaining purple sweet potato is either salt baked, dehydrated and glazed with msobo and homemade shoyu, or made into a purple sweet potato soup which is served with pickled heirloom peppers.

Guava

A dish that Chef Johannes makes using guava is the guava roll, however he has given the typically sweet treat a savoury twist, filling it with bitter greens and preserved guava.

Next, a salad of green guava with the addition of a guava jelly, an acacia honey gel and winter blossoms out the estate’s garden. It is then finished off with a sorbet of bitter greens and a vinaigrette of fermented acacia honey.

Local bananas 

Featured alongside an item on The LivingRoom’s menu, Vanessa’s ducks, are local bananas. The dish sees the whole bird being used, which is then paired with bananas harvested from Summerhill’s Garden – which have been picked at various stages of ripeness.

Madumbe

In the main course the chef focuses on the coastline and the indigenous ingredients and local produce, namely madumbe, the starchy tuber also referred to as yam or taro.

Johannes has paired the root with Willowdale truffle, grown and harvested in the nearby town of Kokstad, and are used to add their aromatic, earthy and umami rich flavours to the main course of locally reared Kudu.

The Kudu loin is coated with a truffle crust and accompanied by a jus aromatised with truffle and a fresh truffle cream. It is served along with a tartar of Kudu, pulled braised Kudu and the madumbe as an espuma, a savoury madumbe granola and a churro of madumbe.

Pumpkin

Partly sourced from the garden and partly from his trusted farmers, Deon and Chisomo, the chef has turned it into a dessert. The pumpkin is worked into a cake and a sauce made of fresh pumpkin juice reduced to 10% of its former self, is accompanied by elements of coconut and wild date. The dessert is finished off with a granita of pumpkin juice.