Flavour First

Read her great new cookbook Jackie Cameron Cooks At Home and learn how to  create extraordinary dishes from traditional favourites

Food has been a passion of Jackie Cameron’s ever since she can remember. Certainly long before the likes of programmes such as MasterChef came onto the scene and fuelled the dreams of many an amateur chef looking for a slice of the action.

“All I had on TV was Floyd and Two Fat Ladies. And Jamie Oliver had only just come onto the scene,” she admits with a chuckle. “I think I entered this industry at the perfect time. I really started this career because I love cooking, not because of a quick walk to fame, and I think a lot of young chefs are doing that.”

Jackie was brought up to believe that hard work would get her anywhere in life. She arrived at Hartford House in KwaZulu-Natal in 2002 and has filled the position of head chef ever since. In the last ten years she has worked hard to elevate culinary standards at the five-star boutique hotel, and ensure that the dishes coming out of her kitchen retain a consistently high standard.

Much to the delight of her fans, the 30-year-old chef recently released her cookbook, Jackie Cameron Cooks At Home. If you’ve ever eaten Jackie’s food at Hartford you’ll know that she prioritises flavours, freshness, technique and quality ingredients above all else. The recipes in her cookbook do the same. They’re a collection of some of her favourite recipes that are simple enough to try at home, yet still teach home cooks how to master the basics – make a home-made mayonnaise or give a simple dish a restaurant-style tweak, like a pear custard ice cream to top a roasted butternut soup.

Of all the recipes in the book, the grandfather’s brawn with mustard and gherkins probably holds the fondest memories for Jackie. Her grandfather was a well-known local butcher, owner of A & D Butchery in Pietermaritzburg. He passed away in the December that Jackie graduated, but she remembered her mother raving about his brawn recipe and decided to track it down via a butcher who had been trained by her grandfather.

“When I met Peter Spiers he said he wondered when I was going to start calling him – and I don’t think I’ve stopped calling him since.  He told me that my grandfather always kept things very simple, just highlighting the main flavour, and I actually got a lump in my throat because that’s exactly what I do.”

Jackie’s chuffed at having a first cookbook at such a young age, but is even more excited at the thought of sharing her recipes with a wider audience.

“At Hartford I can only ever reach a certain number of people on a day to day basis but, with the release of the book, happiness is flowing into other houses, and people are going back to the basics of proper cooking. My love of food really is about the happiness it brings and the memories. Everything always happened around the kitchen and dining room table at home, so a large part of the book is about trying to rekindle that.”

* All photos are supplied.

*Article first published in the August 2013 issue of SA Country Life magazine.

*Jackie Cameron’s cookbook Jackie Cameron Cooks At Home is published by Penguin.