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WELCOME TO the smokingchimney.com

Thank you for visiting my website.

Hello,  I am Marna, in my early thirties  and has been  in the Chef and Hospitality Industry for almost fifteen yours. I have "retired" from physically cooking as a chef and has decided to use my knowledge and experience and move my  work life in a different direction by blogging my career recipes, writing reviews and useful career advice about the industry for future chefs.   My love with food started when I was still young and at home at my parents house. My mom used to bake a wonderful chocolate cake (and also other tarts etc.) for school fundraising and my aunt - then not married- used to help me with my home economics practical exams.  I always went to her house to practice whatever I needed to make and she made sure I knew how to make it.

In my late teens, I already knew I wanted to go the chef route. My dad took me to Warwick Chef School in Onrust River, Hermanus my first stop-by to see where I want to study, and it was also my last stop-by. I liked the school and we did the enrollment.  I was chosen for the July 2003 course. After graduating I left home in Worcester, started working at a Guest House in the Stanford area and mostly continued to be in the Guest House area.  I must say that Guest Houses give you the good freedom to experiment - something you don't always get at a la carte restaurant where the Head Chef changes the menu every now and again.

But it is mostly at Augusta Kleinbosch Guest Farm in Paarl - A Historic Farm in the Cape Winelands- where I had most freedom to develop my cooking style. Our mission was to keep the guests happy - at any cost.

Here I worked hard - from early mornings to late nights - but it was the best time of my career. I was comfortable in my kitchen, had a fantastic team to work with - in my kitchen and restaurant area, as well as the farm area, management, and the room ladies. And with this said - I can assure you getting a fantastic team to work with is extremely rare to find!

Here I could be creative, enjoy my classical cooking style and enjoy our overseas European market guests and locals from South Africa from the Wellington Wine Walk groups, as well as business people. And here I felt most at home in my kitchen. My wonderful husband, Iwan Ross, encouraged me to start a blog. Thank you Iwan, for helping me with all the technical content and the lessons on how to load my recipes for this blog. You do magnificent work for the IT Industry, also view the other marvelous website work he did for St. Omer Nursery and other businesses as well.

Enjoy the blog and I hope other chefs and individuals  can benefit from my recipes. It is here to help and inspire! If you are a home cook, enjoy it too! You have all the time in the world not to rush a recipe.

With love,

Marna

We Recommend

Japie se Gunsteling

Japie se Gunsteling

Japie se Gunsteling recipe I dedicate to my dad. I know how much he loves Japie Se Gunsteling dessert. When I went to visit I made bobotie as the main course with Japie Se Gunsteling as dessert. It is a baked orange pudding and is really great, also for me who isn't so keen on fruit-type desserts this is something to re-consider to eat. And I actually enjoyed it myself. Japie Se Gunsteling is a very popular Afrikaans dessert and goes back a few generations. Use the best fresh oranges for this Japie Se Gunsteling recipe and you will taste the difference. The orange zest add some taste as well. I also used to make this lovely dessert in winter time as it is a baked pudding. Add your homemade vanilla ice-cream or cream to it. Or a dollop of cream. With custard or just as it is. The choice is yours. I used to dish it in a lovely bowl and present it in a simple way. Especially the older men from the Hugenote Gedenkschool Trustee Board enjoyed when I pulled out some older Afrikaans menu's. You can let it bake until it is light brown on top (this depends on your oven as welll. As I have a gas oven it tend to bake longer than a electrical oven. So for all those foreigners overseas, if you are married to a South - African spouse, you must certainly make this lovely Japie Se Gunsteling although I doubt your name is Japie too!

Venison Pie

Venison Pie

My recipe of Venison Pie used to be a favourite among the guest I have cooked for in my Chef Career. And now with the winter month moving closer to us here in South Africa I would like share my Venison Pie recipe with you. I am sure you will enjoy this delicious winter pie a lot. During my time at Augusta Kleinbosch Guest Farm– sadly burnt down and not operating as a Guest Farm anymore – I used to make this a lot for the locals and the international guests. Our international guests loved to explore other dishes, like for instance kudu, eland, gemsbok, and springbok dishes.It is your choice which venison you prefer, but from my experience Kudu or Springbok meat works best. With the crackling fire in the  background, the chimney smoking and your hungry family, this could definitely become a new favourite in the house! If you would like to try out another South African traditional dish, Bobotie with Yellow Rice is a good suggestion.
 

Prawn Salad

Prawn Salad

Prawn salad is really delicious. A wonderful starter idea for a restaurant's Valentine's Day Menu. Prawns I would say is nowadays almost also a delicatessen. Here in South Africa, it is definitely not a cheap type of seafood anymore, but still such a lovely seafood. If you are in the price class and are able to afford to buy prawns, make this delicious Prawn salad recipe. For chefs at an upmarket restaurant, this is also a lovely idea to place on the menu. Prawns are really marvellous, if you don't eat prawns, I can tell you seriously miss out! Prawns are also a very good source of protein. And this is why you should consider eating it even more. You can make Thai prawn soup, prawns with pasta or noodles and even a prawn curry. With this prawn salad, you can enjoy this salad dressing that comes with it, or enjoy my Prawn Cocktail recipe, also visible on my blog underneath ‘Sauces and salsas’ www.smokingchimney.com. This is again a very basic salad, add a few more ingredients and it will be turned into a lovely seafood prawn salad. In this prawn salad recipe, I once again prefer using Robertson’s Fish Spice, a lovely spice. As a tip: Be careful not to overpower the prawns with too much spice as it will overkill the prawns and also it will be too salty.


Green Bean Stew

Green Bean Stew

Green bean stew is a very popular casserole dish for winter seasons. On cold, rainy days nothing is better than a lovely stew or a delicious soup. Even here in South Africa, we love making these types of meals such as tomato stew on white rice or bobotie with yellow rice. With the green bean stew you can you use lamb meat or beef meat. It is absolutely your choice. I prefer beef, as I am not personally a lover of lamb meat. The potatoes in this stew absolutely make this stew, a stew isn’t a stew without some potatoes in it. If you are on one of those diet meals where you can have no potaotes - sorry you will be for sure be missing out. A delicious meal served on a bed of white rice.