For the first time Leaside Cooks is featuring not one but two “chefs,” each with strong local connections. It’s not a culinary smackdown, however, but a coming together and a celebration, which is fitting considering the time of year.
For many Leasiders, April is a month with religious significance. This year Passover and Easter overlap. So, with that in mind, on the menu are Gieselle Baerveldt’s roast leg of lamb, South African style and courtesy of her Ouma (grandmother in Afrikaans), and Stacey Cline’s almond cake with cardamom and pistachios, still warm from her “kosher for Passover” kitchen.
Good friends Gieselle and Stacey have chosen recipes that have been in their families for generations and are full of fond memories.
Passionate for Pesach baking
“It’s all about eggs!” Stacey jokes when talking about Passover baking. “They always remind me of the similarity with Easter; eggs, after all, are powerful symbols of new life, rebirth and spring.”
A great baker, Stacey is also a public servant with a rich history, much of it connected with Leaside. After graduating from Queen’s, Stacey’s first job was constituency assistant for John Godfrey, who served as our MP from 1993 until his retirement from politics in 2008. She taught in the Jane and Finch area for a decade and last March was elected our TDSB trustee, just months before the provincial government shut out the trustees. (See Leaside Life: Elected, Silenced, August 2025.) She is now Councillor Mike Colle’s director of policy and stakeholder engagement.
The Passover story, Stacey explains, “is about freedom, justice and taking a stand against oppression.” Dietarily it is a time of restrictions. “As with other religions, in Judaism we sacrifice in order to remember,” she says. In this case it means no flour or similar grains. It makes baking a challenge. Being observant, Stacey cleans and clears her fridge and pantry to create a “kosher for Passover” kitchen just as her mom did before her.
Her recipe for almond cake with cardamom and pistachios is easy to make. “It is moist, aromatic and heavy on the eggs!” she enthuses. “The cardamom adds an exotic Persian infusion to this coffee cake that is great for Passover or any time of the year.”
Easter South African style
“Do you want the Cape Malay recipe or the slow roast herb method? My Ouma was famous for both lamb dishes at Easter,” says Gieselle. We opt for the slow roast leg of lamb with herbs. Gieselle moved to Canada from South Africa when she was a child but still remembers Easter dinners and her energetic Ouma, named Eurika, who was born on a farm in the Orange Free State. “The lamb was always part of the big Easter meal served after church; I recall multiple generations around the table and Eurika’s saying grace before we ate.”
The fragrant meal includes onions that caramelize in the slow cooker, creating a tasty gravy. “Towards the end you add potatoes; most South Africans don’t see potatoes as a starch but more as a vegetable, so they are served at most meals,” Gieselle explains. The herbs give the recipe its taste as well as its aroma; Gieselle’s calls for rosemary, thyme, garlic, chili peppers and coriander seeds. South Leaside is where she is raising her family and where she keeps her Ouma’s traditions alive.
Like Stacey and Gieselle, the almond cake with cardamom and pistachio and the slow roast leg of lamp with herbs pair well. They have much in common and like a good, warm friendship, refresh the soul.
Roast Leg of Lamb with Sweet Onion Marmalade
The combination of savoury and sweet is familiar to most South Africans. Fresh and dried fruits are mainstays to many local dishes, often popping up in lamb, chicken and beef recipes. Rather than the traditional use of fruit, we’re going to caramelize heaps of onions with some garlic and thyme. A splash of balsamic vinegar helps give the jam a tangy stickiness which is lovely.
There are essentially two steps to this lamb roast. 1 – Marinating overnight and 2 – slow roasting. The meat benefits from an overnight resting, encouraging the flavours to draw deep into the lamb.
For the Marinade
• 2 tablespoons dried coriander
• 2-3 stems rosemary, de-stalked
• 3-4 stems thyme, de-stalked
• 1 clove garlic finely grated
• 1 ½ teaspoons sea salt flakes
• freshly ground black pepper
• 1 tablespoon Demerara or Coconut sugar
• 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
For Cooking The Roast
• extra virgin olive oil
• 2.5 kg free-range leg of lamb
• 4 onions, peeled and cut into wedges
• 1 whole garlic bulb, halved
• 3 stems thyme
• 1/4 cup chicken stock to start, add more as necessary
• 3 tablespoons Demerara or Coconut sugar
• 2 tablespoons good quality balsamic vinegar
• salt and cracked black pepper
Cooking the Roast Leg of Lamb
1. Place all the marinade ingredients, except the olive oil in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Pulse or grind until fine. Finely chopping with a knife works well too. Combine the spices with the olive oil.
2. Massage the spice marinade into the lamb, place in a non-metallic dish and cover with cling film. Refrigerate overnight.
3. Remove the lamb from the fridge and bring up to room temperature. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
4. Place the onions, garlic and thyme in a large roasting tin. Drizzle with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place the leg of lamb with the fatty side facing down on top of the onions. Pour the stock in around the sides of the roasting tin. Cover loosely with foil and roast for 2 ½ hours. Check meat occasionally and add more chicken stock if very low to avoid burning.
5. Remove the foil and turn the lamb over. Add Dark Demerara or coconut sugar and balsamic vinegar to onions and stir through to combine. Roast for a further 1 hour, uncovered. Turn the heat up to 425 degrees and cook for about 20 minutes.
6. Remove the leg of lamb and garlic bulb halves from the roasting tin and cover with foil. Set aside to rest.
7. Place the roasting tin with the onions on the stove. With the heat on high, reduce the pan juices until sticky. Add plenty of black pepper and adjust seasoning if necessary.
8. Return the leg of lamb to the pan and heat through.
• Serve with root vegetable sides and rosemary roast potatoes or garlic mashed potatoes.
Cardamom* Almond Cake with Pistachios
(based on old Joan Nathan recipe)
Ingredients
½ cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
7 large eggs, separated
4 ½ cups plus one tbsp/420 grams almond flour (weigh for best results!)
1 ½ tsp almond extract
2 tsp ground cardamom
Zest of one orange
Confectioners’ sugar for finishing
¼ cup finely chopped pistachios
Instructions
1. Preheat oven to 350. Oil a 9” round pan. Line bottom with parchment. Whisk egg whites with hand mixer or in stand mixer until stiff, but careful not to overmix.
2. In a medium bowl, hand whisk sugar and egg yolks. Whisk in oil and almond extract. Add cardamom and almond flour.
3. Stir the whites into the batter, about a quarter at a time. Fold until just incorporated, do not overmix. It will be stiff, don’t worry,
4. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake until a toothpick comes out clean, 40 to 50 minutes – start checking at 40 minutes.
5. Allow to cool for about 10 minutes. When cool, dust with confectioners’ sugar and the chopped pistachios.
*NB: If you aren’t Jewish, feel free to skip, and enjoy. If you are Sephardic, lucky you – disregard, and enjoy.
If you are Ashkenazi like me, read on: Cardamom is a pod and counts as kitniyot**. But plot twist! In 2015, the Conservative movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of the Rabbinical Assembly ruled in favour (a “teshuvah”) of eating kitniyot on Passover. This is a game-changer for a holiday rooted in specific traditions for centuries! It took me a few years to embrace the change, but I now enjoy kitniyot during Passover. And honestly? It makes the holiday much easier, and much tastier.
**Kitniyot (“little things” in Hebrew) refers to food groups – legumes, grains, and seeds – that traditionally were avoided by Ashkenazi Jews during Passover, even though they are not actually chametz (leavened grain, like bread).
