Recettes

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

Dried Apricot and Lamb Sosaties

Sosaties are South African kebabs, marinated meat threaded onto skewers with dried apricots and grilled over a braai. Lamb is the national favourite. The name comes from Afrikaans, from sate, the Malay word for skewered meat, and saus for sauce. That etymology points directly at the origin: sosaties are a Cape Malay dish, developed by the community descended from people brought to the Cape from the Indonesian archipelago and South Asia under Dutch colonial rule. The curried, fruit-sweetened marinade is characteristic of that cooking, and it is where South African food gets much of its sweet-savoury instinct. The apricots are the distinctive part. Dried apricots are threaded between the meat, and during grilling they soften and caramelise while the curry and vinegar marinade cuts through the lamb fat. Some of the marinade is usually thickened into a sauce and served alongside. They belong at a braai alongside boerewors, chops and steaks, which is where most South Africans encounter them. Marinating overnight is standard and makes a substantial difference, the acid in the marinade works on the meat over hours.

1 hr 15 minMediumSouth Africa

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook

Pap & Sous

Pap and sous is maize porridge with tomato gravy, and between them they account for a very large share of what is eaten in South Africa on an ordinary day. Pap is the smooth, firm maize meal that anchors the plate. Sous, Afrikaans for sauce, is the tomato and onion gravy that goes over it. The comparison South Africans reach for when explaining pap to outsiders is grits or polenta, and it holds up as far as the grain goes. What it misses is the position the dish occupies. Pap is not a side. It is the centre of the plate, and everything else is arranged in relation to it, which is why the quality of a household's pap is noticed and remarked on. The gravy is where the cook is visible. A sous is built from onion, pepper, chilli, garlic and tomato with paprika and a little sugar and vinegar, and every household has a version. Pap and sous is eaten on its own as a complete meal and served alongside grilled meat and boerewors when there is a fire going, which is the same dish playing two different roles depending on the day.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hrEasySouth Africa

Recette de Chef.donkey · 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