Recettes

Braai (South African Open-Fire Grilling)

A braai is South African cooking over an open wood or charcoal fire, and it is as much a social occasion as a cooking method. The word comes from braaivleis, Afrikaans for grilled meat, from the Dutch braden, to roast. The distinction South Africans draw between a braai and a barbecue is about the fire, and it is taken seriously. A braai is cooked over wood or charcoal, with wood preferred because of what it does to the flavour; gas is generally not accepted as a braai at all. The fire is also the point of the gathering rather than a means to an end, people build it, wait for it, cook on it and then stay around it long after the food is finished. And unlike a Northern Hemisphere barbecue, it is not seasonal. South Africans braai in any weather, and 24 September is a national braai day. What goes on the fire is broad: boerewors, lamb chops, steak, chicken, snoek and other fish, sweetcorn, and braaibroodjies, the grilled cheese, tomato and onion sandwiches that go on once the coals have died down. Potjiekos, cooked in a cast-iron pot over the same fire, is a close relative. The source for this page contains no recipe card at all. The method below is reconstructed from its description, and that is flagged.

1 hr 30 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de Nympha · Africook

Orange and Milk Braised Pork Carnitas

Pork shoulder braised in milk and orange juice for two hours, then roasted and grilled until the edges crisp. Carnitas are Mexican, and the page sits in Worldwide Recipes with its URL unchanged. The name means little meats, and the technique is what defines it. Traditionally the pork is confited, cooked slowly submerged in lard until it is soft enough to shred, then briefly crisped at high heat. That two-stage structure is the whole point: soft and unctuous inside, browned and crunchy at the edges. Braising in milk instead of lard is a variation, and a sensible one for a domestic kitchen, since it produces the same tenderness with far less fat. Milk braising is worth understanding. The acid in the citrus curdles the milk, which looks alarming and is correct, the curds break down over a long cook and the whey tenderises the meat, giving a texture and a faint sweetness that water or stock cannot. It is an old Italian technique as well as a Mexican one. The source describes barbacoa as originating in the Caribbean. The word is Taíno and reached Spanish that way, but barbacoa as eaten in Mexico is Mexican. Recorded as the muddle it is.

2 hr 50 minMediumSouth Africa

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

South African Peri Peri Chicken

Peri peri chicken is marinated in a paste of chilli, lemon, olive oil, garlic and spices, then seared and finished in the oven. It is flame-grilled in its classic form, and it is one of the most exported dishes southern Africa has produced. Its origins are genuinely contested. The source is direct that it is not clear who first made it, and that the question remains hotly debated between Portuguese-Angolans and Portuguese-Mozambicans. What is not in dispute is the chilli: Portuguese settlers brought chilli peppers to Angola and Mozambique, where the small African bird's eye variety naturalised, and piri piri is the Swahili word for pepper. Peri peri is central to Mozambique's history precisely because the sauce reflects the mixing of cultures there. This version is filed as South African, which reflects where the dish is now most commercially associated rather than where it began, and that distinction is worth keeping in view. The marinade needs overnight, or at least three hours. The technique is a hard sear in an ovenproof pan followed by fifteen to twenty minutes in the oven, with the reserved marinade poured in to become the sauce.

50 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de Amara · Africook

Pap En Vleis

Pap en vleis is Afrikaans for porridge and meat, and the name describes the whole of it. Maize meal cooked to a smooth, firm mass, and grilled meat beside it. Two components, no sauce required, and a dish that the entire country recognises regardless of which language its household speaks. Its natural setting is outdoors and social. Pap en vleis is what comes off a braai and what is served at a shisanyama, the grill and gathering place where meat is bought, cooked over open fire and eaten on site. The dish exists in the same space as the fire and the people standing around it, and eating it indoors at a table is possible but slightly beside the point. Maize is the foundation of the South African diet, and pap is its most direct expression: nothing added, nothing disguised, judged entirely on texture. The meat is whatever the household or the grill has, and its variability is why the dish has stayed universal rather than becoming the property of any one community. A dish defined by two nouns leaves room for everyone's version.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

55 minEasySouth Africa

Recette de Laila · Africook