South African Cuisine And Its Traditional Dishes

2024 Author: Jasmine Walkman | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 08:29

Once upon a time, when apartheid was still practiced in South Africa, it was mainly the locals who prepared delicious food, and whites only took advantage of their culinary skills. That's probably why no member of the white middle class at the time thought that gastronomy was actually an art.

The wind of change

Nowadays, the interest in cooking as a career is extremely high and South Africans are rightly proud of their cuisine. One of the most interesting schools is Cape Town. It has its origins in the cooking habits of Dutch farmers, the first white settlers in these areas to appear there in the 17th century. Subsequently, Cape Town cuisine began to feel the delicate influence of eating habits and the French Huguenots, immigrants from Germany and British settlers who entered South Africa after 1820.

Simplicity and adaptability

The most interesting contribution in that of the Malay slaves who arrived in the late seventeenth century. They bring their exotic spices and their worship of food.

Local products

Today's South African cuisine is rich in ideas, and the products to one are local - whether it is traditional recipes or borrowed from elsewhere.

Liqueurs and sauces

Advocate is a liqueur with eggs and flavors such as rum and lemon juice. This Dutch egg cognac, often used for medicinal purposes, is found in good supermarkets and wine shops. Piri-piri is a hot sauce brought to South Africa by the Portuguese. Serve as a sauce for melting or watering fish and meat before grilling.

Meat and fish

Biltong is sun-dried tender meat, cut into strips, which is served for breakfast. Previously, venison was dried, but recently beef has been used for this recipe. Elena is not in great demand today, people prefer veal because it is more fragile. Marinated fish, fried and then soaked in vinegar with curry sauce, is a popular dish imported from Malay cuisine. From Chinese restaurants you can buy canned pearl barley, as it is called in South Africa ocean shell abalone.

Fruits and vegetables

There are many fruits and vegetables in South Africa. Blommekes, which are used to flavor stews, are the flower buds of a plant found in the swamps of Cape Town.

Figs, Cape Town grapes (physalis) and peaches are available fresh and canned in syrup. The passion flower, called granadilla here, is bought fresh or canned.

Specialties and tips

Antique shops in Cape Town offer a wide variety of antique kitchen utensils - three-legged chops for hanging fires, iron molds for waffles and wonderful copper utensils for storing food.

How to make burevurs

To make this traditional South African sausage, take ground beef and pork, season with nutmeg, grated orange peel, coriander, marjoram, salt and pepper. Fill the sausages with a food processor (in the past, the intestines were stuffed through beef horns, and the meat was pushed with a stick made of local wood).

Mosbolekes

Prepare sweet bread dough and put it in a cake tin. Make incisions in the dough to the bottom of the form first longitudinally and then transversely, in thick slices. When you bake the bread, break it into slices and dry it very slowly in an oven preheated to 150 degrees.

Burevurs

Make a dough of 2 eggs, 450 g of brown sugar, 2 teaspoons of cinnamon, 2 teaspoons of grated tangerine peel, 125 ml of red wine, 250 g of melted butter and 450 g of flour. Cut the dough into walnut-sized balls and place them in a heated waffle tin. Close it and bake for 30 seconds on each side over medium heat to get thin and light waffles. They should become brown and crispy. Roll them up like pancakes while they are still hot.

Tarneleke

Heat the sugar slightly until it becomes transparent and liquefies. Add a little dompi (seeds of cones of local pine. Can be replaced with almonds) and cook until brown. Pour the mixture on a greased surface, cool and cut.

Mebos

Make a puree of fresh apricots. Mix it with the same amount of sugar and cook slowly in a large saucepan with a thick bottom until the sugar dissolves. Continue to cook, stirring, to evaporate the water. When the paste becomes thick enough to retain its shape, spread it in a pan and let it dry in a hot and ventilated place. After three days, cut it into squares and roll them in powdered sugar.

Homemade liqueur Van der Hum

This liqueur can only be found in South Africa. So follow the recipe to make your own. Take a clean, sterilized bottle and mix 5 cloves, 2 pieces of dried tangerine without seeds or tangerine peel, 1 small cinnamon stick and a liter of fresh grated nutmeg together with 1 liter of quality brandy. Close the bottle tightly and seal with wax. Leave the liqueur in the cold for 1 month, then carefully strain it through gauze into another clean and sterilized bottle. Add 600 ml of sugar syrup and 225 ml of gin. Let the liqueur stand for another 24 hours before serving. Your family and friends are sure to love it.

Canned watermelon

Cut the watermelon into slices. Peel a squash, grate it and squeeze the juice. Remove the middle with the seeds (you can use them for a fruit salad). Cut into pieces. Weigh and soak in salted water overnight. Rinse and boil in clean water until the watermelon is soft. Boil in syrup (450 g of sugar for every 450 g of fruit dissolved in 900 ml of water) until the fruit becomes transparent and the syrup thickens. Store in sterilized jars and seal.

Cooksters

Sift 250 g of flour with 4 tbsp. baking powder and ½ tsp. salt and add 2 tbsp. butter. Add 125 ml of yogurt, whey or water with lemon juice and mix a soft dough to knead easily. Mix well. Leave to rise for 15 minutes. Roll out into a layer 6 mm thick and cut into strips 0.6x7 cm. Gather the ends into 3 strips and knit them. Press both ends of the braids firmly. Fry in plenty of hot oil until golden brown. Drain, cool slightly and immerse in ice-cold syrup. Carefully remove, allow all excess syrup to drain and dry on a wire rack.