Kogelberg weekender bliss

This is about my happy little weekend not too far from Cape Town.
In Kogelberg Nature Reserve. With good people and good walks and good food. Lots of it.
Kogelberg is home to the pristine Palmiet River, with lots of lovely walks around mountains, through kloofs and along the river itself.

We arrived at lunchtime on Saturday,and proceeded to eat the previous nights braaied Yellowtail (it was a monster) and cous-cous with gusto. Four of us still hadnt finished the fish by the time lunch was over and I was already dreaming about the nice pasta sauce I was going to make from it...

But first to the picture above...The ostrich fillet, and linguine aglio olio ( with chilli and pinenuts)
The last little bite to take a photo of - I almost forgot because Im new to blogging and because the food tasted so good and my friend is so handsome...

Ostrich fillet - whole
salt -use good salt, like maldon, or sea salt or similiar...good salt makes all the difference
black pepper
white pepper
mustard -english, dijon, german...

To Marinate...
Sprinkle fillet with the salt and peppers, and then using your hands rub mustard all over the fillet. Leave the meat at room temperature for a min of an hour before cooking.
To Cook...
Make a nice braai (barbeque), with good even coals and place your fillet on the grill. Test the centre by cutting through the meat in the thickest part with a sharp knife and fork, it should still be pink inside, it cooks quite quickly as it's a fillet. To serve, slice the meat in one centimetre slices, but first allow the meat to rest for at least 5 minutes - the perfect time to go and make your Linguine.....

500g Linguine - cook till very al dente, that is almost undercooked...
4 tbsp olive oil
6 garlic cloves, chopped, squashed, definetly peeled..
2 dried chillis whole or 1/2 tsp dried chilli flakes ( gives it a bite)
50g pinenuts - roast them in a pan to a nut brown colour, ps they burn quickly.

Warm the olive oil gently to a medium heat in a pan, add the garlic and chillis (and the pinenuts if you can time them not to burn.) The garlic must not burn just go golden, you are flavouring the olive oil with it. Once it's been humming for 5 minutes you can add the linguine (add pre-toasted pinenuts here), turn up the heat and toss it around properly so all the pasta gets coated with the tasty oil. Take off the heat as soon as it's all distributed. Serve immediately with grated parmesan, salt and pepper.

We drank a lovely Malbec (from the Woolie) and it was spot on!