Whiskey Milk Tart

By Chef Thobeka Shangase

“My…. affair with whiskey and custard may be the reason why I am still single.”

I love milk tart, I can’t possibility think of one bad thing to say about milk tart, its rich custard on a buttery crisp pastry, and it’s delicious.

 Milk Tart is one of those proudly South African dishes, we grew up around, (well I did), and growing up in the suburbs, there was a milk tart sold at every corner store on every street. Biting into a slice of milk tart is heaven enough to make you feel like nothing like this exists anywhere else in the world.

While researching this piece I found out that there are many versions of a milk tart around the world, the version of the milk tart that we know in South African is based on and old Dutch pastry, but it’s changed and morphed into what we call milk tart today. But in places such as Portugal they have the custard pie which is basically milk tartlets on puff pastry.

Traditional South African milk tart is made with short crust pastry and filled with what i believe to be a version of French creme pat. In some parts of the world they know milk tart as a custard tart, it’s made the same way as we do it here but it’s called a slightly different name. Not everyone is smart enough to serve a milk tart with cinnamon, which is unfortunate because the cinnamon plays such a vital part in the whole scene.

That dusting of cinnamon on top isn’t visually appealing, there’s something about the colour brown that makes all think of poo, but none the less that dusting of cinnamon adds a sense of drama and danger, it’s the last ingredient that takes it all over the edge and makes milk tart what it is. Without that dusting of cinnamon milk tart would be boring and bland. It’s creamy, custardy-custard, with a bite of spice from the cinnamon.

Being the trouble maker I am, I can’t leave well enough alone and I started to think of ways of how to make milk tart better so I put whiskey in it.I later realised that whiskey being so strong it needs a high fat content to balance it out and so initially i thought of a crème pat, the whisky could really cut well through the richness but then later changed my mind and decided on milk tart instead.

How did I come up with the idea of putting whiskey into milk tart you ask, well I wish I had an elegant story that goes like …. (While at a whiskey tasting the whiskey merchant was describing the notes of a particular Scottish whiskey which had notes of vanilla and cinnamon, of course being a pastry chef, my first thought was custard) No. 

I first got the idea when I was grocery shopping at Pick n Pay I happened to look down at my shopping trolley and sitting at the top of the trolley, side by side were my two favourite things in the world a bottle of Jameson Select Reserve Whiskey and a ready-made family size milk tart, yes, whiskey is on my grocery list, its right next to the milk and cheese.  Whiskey and custard could be what defines me as a woman and a Chef. (Side bar: my gluttonous and impassioned affair with whiskey and custard may be the reason why I am still single. It’s something to think about.)  

Chef: Part 2

By Chef Thobeka Shangase

Chefs by nature are extremely competitive, I cannot imagine another industry where the desire to be better then the next person is so rampant. I remember back in culinary school, the first two months of school we all loved each other and then fast forward four months later you were lucky if you weren’t killed in your sleep,  peoples assignments were going missing, pages were being ripped out of some, research was being hidden, resources being thrown away, fractions had formed. The kitchen was the worst there was always a rush for ingredients everyone took extra so some wouldn’t get and have to make do, oh the shit talking was like an infectious disease.

Everyone judged everybody else’s plate, copied plating ideas, accidentally knocked over things that were in the fridge, pastry resting in the fridge often went missing. Culinary School was only a teaser, professional kitchens are far worse. Being a young chef in a professional kitchen is like being in the front line of a war zone. Life is brutal and borderline hostile if it’s not the other staff making you do all the grunt work, it’s your head chef or Sous Chef making your life miserable, being set up to take a fall is a common occurrence I remember an experience when C.D.P (Chef de Partie) had a tray of bacon grilling in the oven, she forgot about the bacon went outside to smoke and the Sous Chef found the bacon burning to coal, who did she blame for the cock up? ME!

In my experience I found that it wasn’t the head chef that was hardest to please because I am damn good at what I do, it was my colleagues, walking into a kitchen with an expensive qualification in your back pocket and an impressive knife roll under your arm is not taken lightly by the people in the kitchen who started off as dish washers and have slaved for years. That is where most of the hostility stems from and chefs are not one to suffer silently, I’ve had someone look me in the eye after seeing my knife set and tell me that I am not worthy to have the knife set I had, as a chef you have to earn your knives with experience, and that is why knives grow feet and walk out knife rolls mysteriously.

People don’t realize how catty this industry is, every chef has been involved in some rivalry, every chef has another chef they cannot stand, you piss of the wrong person and it could be the end of your career, people have made phone calls and purposely blocked another person from getting hired.  Screw the Real Housewives, someone should do a reality television show about chefs and life in the kitchen. I do think it would be too real and too bloody for t.v.

 As chefs if we aren’t talking about our experiences and the places we have worked, we are talking about our food and how amazing it is or we are talking shit about another chef and telling anyone who will listen how much better we are then everybody else. There’s nothing worse than a chef who has worked at a five star property or worked abroad, every word out of their mouth stars with, “When I s working in London at a five star restaurant…”This is precisely the reason why shows like Chopped and Top Chef exist, no chef could pass up the opportunity to talk about themselves, their food and to beat other chefs.

I’m no different from other chefs, I too believe my food is excellent and is better than most, I too believe that I’m more talented and skilled then most around me. It’s just how it is. We feel this way because a tremendous amount of time and attention to detail is required from a chef, I demand perfection of myself and quiet honestly I have no respect for a chef who doesn’t feel the same about their food. If you as chef don’t demand perfection of yourself and will let an adequate plate leave the kitchen, you need to strip of your whites and retire, go work at Pick n Pay and deep fry fries for a living because you are a waist of space and a disgrace to the uniform.

This profession is hard, but I wouldn’t have it any other way, I like the competition, I like the back biting and shit talking. I wouldn’t want to be in this industry if it was all about love, support and holding hands, no way. Give me anger, give me competition, give me rivalry, deceit and blood sworn enemies. That’s the shit I live on as a chef.