I realize that I usually post twice a week and that recently it's been just once a week. I've been busy though, I swear, and even though I want to take a minute to write a post it's been tricky lately. Walls have needed repair, rooms have needed painting, the garden is still getting set up, and then there is a little event this weekend called my oldest daughter's 12th Birthday.
However I realize that the month is almost up and I wanted to get in one more post on the South African food I've been cooking. There are two more dishes that we've had this month that I thought were worthy of sharing here. So lets cut to the chase.
The first dish was another one that is traditionally served at the braii I mentioned last time. It's a kebab called a Sosatie. This Sosatie was made with chicken and apricots. The chicken was marinated in a strong curry mixture and then threaded onto skewers with apricots. While they were being grilled the apricots blackened and charred. While most of the time I consider this to be a bad thing, on this particular dish it was really rather nice. I served the Sosatie over the traditional yellow rice dish that was speckled with raisins. If you are interested in trying this dish out you can get the recipe I used from Rainbow Nation's website here.
The second dish I thought was worth sharing was a dish called Frikkadels. The kids loved this one. It's not hard to understand why considering that it is basically a South African version of spaghetti and meatballs. The recipe that I will link to in a minute has you cook the meat patties in a beef broth, but I had looked at other versions that suggested cooking the patties in sous, which you may remember is the tomato sauce that gets served with the boerewors sausage. The patties are nicely spiced using nutmeg and coriander which works really nicely with the sous. Again it is served over the yellow rice. This is a comfort food dish and I held onto the recipe for a nice fall night in the future. You can get the recipe I used from Group recipes here.
Overall my impressions on South African cooking have been positive. I cooked a different dish 5-6 nights a week so I feel I got a good feel for their cuisine. Their food does not seem to be heavily spiced, which the kids enjoyed. However the meals we ate were all heavy on the meat and lacking when it came to a variety of vegetables. I was surprised because my initial assumption was that South African food would be mostly vegetarian and it is exactly the opposite. I've shared the handful of recipes that we really enjoyed and are planning on making again, but I'm ready to wrap up this country and move onto another region next week. We are all looking forward to that.
However I realize that the month is almost up and I wanted to get in one more post on the South African food I've been cooking. There are two more dishes that we've had this month that I thought were worthy of sharing here. So lets cut to the chase.
The first dish was another one that is traditionally served at the braii I mentioned last time. It's a kebab called a Sosatie. This Sosatie was made with chicken and apricots. The chicken was marinated in a strong curry mixture and then threaded onto skewers with apricots. While they were being grilled the apricots blackened and charred. While most of the time I consider this to be a bad thing, on this particular dish it was really rather nice. I served the Sosatie over the traditional yellow rice dish that was speckled with raisins. If you are interested in trying this dish out you can get the recipe I used from Rainbow Nation's website here.
The second dish I thought was worth sharing was a dish called Frikkadels. The kids loved this one. It's not hard to understand why considering that it is basically a South African version of spaghetti and meatballs. The recipe that I will link to in a minute has you cook the meat patties in a beef broth, but I had looked at other versions that suggested cooking the patties in sous, which you may remember is the tomato sauce that gets served with the boerewors sausage. The patties are nicely spiced using nutmeg and coriander which works really nicely with the sous. Again it is served over the yellow rice. This is a comfort food dish and I held onto the recipe for a nice fall night in the future. You can get the recipe I used from Group recipes here.
Overall my impressions on South African cooking have been positive. I cooked a different dish 5-6 nights a week so I feel I got a good feel for their cuisine. Their food does not seem to be heavily spiced, which the kids enjoyed. However the meals we ate were all heavy on the meat and lacking when it came to a variety of vegetables. I was surprised because my initial assumption was that South African food would be mostly vegetarian and it is exactly the opposite. I've shared the handful of recipes that we really enjoyed and are planning on making again, but I'm ready to wrap up this country and move onto another region next week. We are all looking forward to that.
Interesting putting apricots with the chicken on the kebob, the yellow rice looks really good as does the Frikkadels. I agree, I would have thought the food of S Africa would be heavy on the vegetables but meat seems to be the main ingredient. Really enjoyed your posts and look forward to the next place you land in your culinary journey.
ReplyDeleteIs it that South Africans eat a lot of meat, or is it that the recipes they consider good enough to put in cook books have a lot of meat? I expect if meat is a rare treat it would be very heavy in special dishes...not that I know anything about African food cultures.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I have been reading it is just that S. African dishes rely heavily on meat. I honestly wasn't using cookbooks much throughout this past month. I was really using the internet to get the recipes. And everywhere I read both in books and online confirmed the heavy use of meat in their dishes. I was surprised.
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