Chef Zandi is on a mission to spread awareness about sustainability through culinary experience.
Zandile’Zandi’ Makhoba collaborated with chef Paul Dukai, to launch the Mzansi Meets Italian culinary experience. This innovative project brings together South African heritage and Italian tradition, celebrating local farmers and sustainable sourcing of food.
Award-winning chef Zandi rose to fame after winning Colour Your Plate with Koo on SABC2. She has become popular for her passion for storytelling through food.
“It’s very important for us to work with local farmers, especially those who do organic farming because we spread awareness about sustainability and touch on issues of food waste and climate change,” she said.
Zandi gave TimesLIVE a taste of her take on heritage food using only salt and pepper but making flavourful dishes — a delight for a vegetarian like me.
She served an Amadumbe gnocchi with wild green pesto and melanzane as an appetizer and a kiwano and garden herb gazpacho sorbet as a palate cleanser. I had the stuffed cauliflower with bambara beans and ancient grains, with carrot-ginger puree as a vegetarian option for the main course.
To top it off, she served Amarula panna cotta on an almond bed with passion fruit and honeycomb for dessert.
“Taste and nutrition is what we need for our bodies.”
Growing up in the rural area of KwaHlabisa, Zandi had a lot of allergies and thus never used a lot of spices, eating dishes like chicken with salt, pepper and vegetables. This influenced her approach to her profession.
Zandile “ Zandi The Chef” Makhoba and Chef Paul Dukai. (Supplied by Zandile “ Zandi The Chef” Makhobaand Chef Paul Duka/Zandile “ Zandi The Chef” Makhoba)
She’s an international chef trained specifically in French cuisine.
“It is a fundamental part of being a chef. We are taught the simplicity of food. We just elevate the ingredients so that you understand what we’re cooking. It’s very important for us to showcase the dishes as they are and how they are. When we are elevating [the dishes] we use different techniques to elevate it, not to change the whole product to be something else.
“Home cooks need to shy away from using spices. They must have an objective of what they want to achieve. I’ve seen that most home cooks have used a lot of spices which end up changing the taste and taking away the nutrition or maybe use a lot of cooking methods that don’t elevate but take away nutrition, like using a lot of water instead of steaming. Instead of salt and pepper they would use a lot of spices which are not quality.”
[L-R] Stuffed cauliflower rolls with bambara beans, ancient grains and carrot -ginger puree; and line fish of the day with samp Risotto, citrus herb veloute and farm vegetables.
By documenting her entire food journey, from soil and sea to plate, Zandi, alongside chef Paul, wants to place small-scale farmers at the forefront of a global culinary conversation.
Four episodes will be released.They have two more local dinner experiences lined up before they jet off to Italy where Zandi said she’s looking forward to empowering other chefs in different regions as they explore local ingredients next year.
“We want to tell the story about indigenous food in South Africa.”
TimesLIVE
Dining and Cooking