Recettes

Dombolo, a South African steamed bread, cut into wedges and served with stew

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Dombolo is South African steamed bread, and it occupies a particular place in the country's kitchens because it is bread that never sees an oven. Where a loaf is baked in dry heat, dombolo rises under a lid over water, and the result is soft, dense and slightly damp in a way no baked bread achieves. It belongs to the stew. Dombolo is not eaten alone and is not a side thought about separately. It arrives with chicken stew, beef stew, oxtail, lamb or tripe, and its job is to take up the gravy that the meat has spent hours building. In Zulu households the same technique produces jeqe, and the distinction between the two names is one that South Africans hold firmly even when it is drawn differently from one family to the next: broadly, jeqe is steamed as its own loaf, while dombolo is the dough set to rise over the pot the stew is already in. It is Sunday food and gathering food, made in quantity, cut into wedges at the table, and eaten with the hands.

South Africa3 hr 30 minAmara

Potjiekos, a South African stew cooked in a three legged cast iron pot over an open fire

Potjiekos (Afrikaans Stew on the Fire)

Potjiekos takes its name from its vessel. A potjie is the round, three legged cast iron pot that sits directly in the embers, and potjiekos, pronounced poi-key-kos, is simply the food that comes out of it. The pot is a descendant of the Dutch oven brought to the Cape in the 17th century, and it is now found in households across southern Africa. The defining rule of a potjie is that it is not stirred. Ingredients are layered, meat at the bottom, vegetables above it in the order of how long they need, and the lid stays on. What comes out is not a stew in the ordinary sense: the layers hold something of their own identity rather than dissolving into a common sauce, and that separation is the point of the method. It is also a social form. A potjie runs for three to six hours, and the cooking is the occasion rather than the preparation for one. People sit around the fire while it happens. South Africans distinguish it from a braai, which is the other great outdoor cooking institution, and rank the two as the country's twin claims on the fire.

South AfricaAmara

Mebos

Mebos is one of the oldest sweets of the Cape: ripe apricots cured in brine, dried in the sun, and packed in layers of sugar until they carry salt and sweetness at the same time. The combination is unusual in European confectionery and entirely normal in the Cape, where the preserving traditions of several continents met and stayed. Its name records that meeting. Mebos is generally traced either to the Japanese umeboshi, the salted pickled plum, or to the Arabic mishmish, meaning apricot, and both routes point to the maritime trade that shaped Cape food. Either way the word arrived from outside and the thing itself became local. It is preserving food rather than confectionery in the modern sense. Apricots have a short season and mebos extends it by months, which is why the Cape's fruit growing districts produced it in quantity long before sugar was cheap. South Africans still carry it on hikes and long drives for exactly the reason it was made: it keeps, it needs no refrigeration, and a small piece goes a long way. The word is also applied loosely to other dried fruit sweets, which is a modern imprecision rather than the original meaning.

South AfricaNympha

South African chicken pie with a golden puff pastry lid, filled with chicken, ham and egg in a sago thickened sauce

Chicken Pie (Traditional South African Style)

South African chicken pie is distinguished from every other chicken pie in the world by one ingredient: sago. The pearls of tapioca are soaked and cooked into the sauce, where they turn translucent and give the filling a texture that is moist and slightly gelatinous without being wet. No other pie tradition does this, and South Africans who grew up with it can identify its absence immediately. The spicing is the other marker. Nutmeg and cloves in a savoury chicken filling reads as unusual to most palates and is entirely standard here, reflecting the Cape spice traditions that run through South African cooking. Lemon juice cuts it, and thyme and rosemary sit underneath. The source for this recipe is firm that the nutmeg and clove are non negotiable. It is festive food and family food. Chicken pie appears at Christmas, at Sunday lunches and at the potluck gatherings where South Africans bring a dish, and it is served hot rather than cold. Ham is scattered through the filling and slices of hard cooked egg are tucked in, which gives the cut pie its pink and yellow flecks against the white chicken. Yellow rice, roast potatoes, green beans and a tomato salad are the conventional accompaniments.

South AfricaFoodChef

Chocolate Malva Pudding

Malva pudding is one of South Africa's defining desserts: a soft, spongy baked pudding drenched in a hot cream and butter sauce the moment it leaves the oven, so the sponge soaks it up rather than sitting in it. This is the chocolate version, with cocoa worked into both the sponge and the sauce. Apricot jam is the ingredient that surprises people and it is not optional. It goes into the batter rather than onto the finished pudding, and its acidity reacts with the bicarbonate of soda to give the sponge its characteristic open, slightly sticky crumb. A malva pudding made without it is a chocolate sponge, which is a different and lesser thing. The dish is generally traced to Cape Dutch cooking, and the name has been variously explained through Afrikaans and through the wine sometimes served with it, with no single account settled. What is not in doubt is its position: malva pudding appears at Sunday lunches, at restaurants across the country and at every gathering where a hot pudding is expected, served with custard, cream or ice cream while it is still warm.

South Africa1 hr 10 minLaila

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Peppermint crisp tart is a South African fridge tart, which is a category of dessert the country has more or less to itself: no baking, assembled in layers, and set in the refrigerator rather than an oven. This one takes about fifteen minutes to build and then several hours of waiting, which is the hardest part. It is built from four things, three of which are specific products. Whipped cream is folded together with caramelised condensed milk, grated Peppermint Crisp chocolate is stirred through, and the mixture is layered between Tennis biscuits, a coconut biscuit that softens into an almost cake-like layer as it sits. The biscuits are what make it a tart rather than a mousse. That dependence on particular brands makes it awkward to reproduce outside southern Africa, and South Africans abroad tend to have it carried out to them. The usual substitutions are a peppermint Aero bar for the Peppermint Crisp and a plain coconut biscuit for the Tennis. It appears at braais, birthdays and family gatherings, and it belongs firmly to the same national repertoire as malva pudding and koeksisters.

South Africa15 minAmara

Peri Peri Sausage Rolls

This is a British sausage roll carrying a Southern African sauce, and it is worth being precise about which part comes from where. The sausage roll itself, seasoned pork in puff pastry, is British. Peri peri is the contribution from Africa, and it is a substantial one. Peri peri, also spelled piri piri, is the Swahili name for the African bird's eye chilli, a small and ferociously hot capsicum that grows wild across Mozambique, Angola and southern Africa. Portuguese traders encountered it in their African territories and built a sauce around it with garlic, lemon, vinegar and paprika, and that sauce travelled back through Portugal and outward again. Its association with grilled chicken in Mozambique and South Africa is where most people meet it. So this is a fusion piece rather than a traditional dish of anywhere, and it makes no claim otherwise. It is also a genuinely demanding recipe: the pastry is laminated from scratch, which means rolling and folding butter into dough across several chilled stages, and that is the bulk of the work. Shop bought puff pastry produces a perfectly good sausage roll and removes about ninety minutes.

South Africa1 hr 45 minChef.donkey

South African Picnic Bread sliced to reveal cheese, bacon, and spring onion filling, a popular braai bread from South Africa

Picnic Bread (From South Africa)

Picnic bread is a South African savoury quick bread, heavy with cheese, spring onion and bacon, bound with egg, and made to be eaten cold in a slice with nothing on it. The category matters. It is a quick bread, raised chemically rather than with yeast, which means no proving and no kneading. Everything is mixed and baked. That is much of why it exists: it is a bread that can be made in an evening for the next day without planning. Its association is with food carried away from home. It is described as an old recipe favoured by fishermen for their packed lunches and by schoolchildren, and the reasoning is visible in the recipe itself. It needs no butter because there is enough fat in it already. It holds together in a slice rather than crumbling. It does not dry out the way a plain loaf does. And it is dense enough that one slice is a meal rather than an accompaniment, which is exactly what you want on a boat or a long day out. The texture is unusual for a bread. It is moist, almost pudding-like in the middle, without being heavy, and the cheese keeps it soft for days. It is honest about what it is: nobody has ever pretended this is a low-fat recipe.

South Africa55 minFoodChef

Buttermilk Rusks

Rusks are twice-baked South African biscuits, dried until hard and dunked in coffee or tea. Dipping is not optional and not a matter of taste: a properly made rusk is too hard to bite comfortably, and softening it in a hot drink is how it is eaten. The method is what makes them. A soft dough, closer to a scone than a biscuit, is baked into rectangles, broken apart and then returned to a very low oven for around twelve hours to dry out completely. That second drying is the whole thing, and it is why rusks keep for weeks in an airtight tin. Buttermilk gives the characteristic tang and reacts with the raising agents to keep the crumb open enough to dry through. The most famous South African rusk brand began in 1939 in Molteno in the north-eastern Cape, where a woman baked rusks from a family recipe during the Depression and sold them to local farming families. It grew into a national brand and a household name. **This recipe is a generic buttermilk rusk recipe, not that company's recipe**, and it is titled here as buttermilk rusks for that reason. The slug and URL are unchanged.

South Africa12 hr 45 minNympha

Hertzoggies

A hertzoggie is a small tartlet: a short pastry base, a spoonful of apricot jam, and a coconut meringue topping baked until crisp and golden. It is called a hertzogkoekie in Afrikaans and a Hertzog cookie in English, and it has been made in South Africa since the 1920s. The name is political. The tartlet was created by supporters of J. B. M. Hertzog, the Boer War general who became South African Prime Minister, and it carries his name a century later. That is an unusually specific and unusually documented origin for a baked good, and it is worth recording plainly as history rather than endorsement. It is still widely eaten. Hertzoggies are a standard tea-time biscuit across South Africa and are made at home as part of the country's cottage baking tradition, alongside koeksisters and other well-known South African sweets. They are also strongly associated with Eid in the Cape Malay community, where they appear on the table among the other sweets prepared for the occasion. The combination of light pastry, sharp apricot jam and chewy coconut meringue is the whole appeal, and each of the three needs to stay distinct.

South Africa1 hr 5 minNympha

Chakalaka

Chakalaka is a South African relish of onions, tomatoes, peppers and often baked beans, spiced with curry powder and chilli, and it is close to compulsory at a braai. It came out of the townships, where it has been a staple of black South African cooking for decades. Accounts of its origin vary and none is firmly documented, which is common for food that developed in domestic and working-class settings rather than in restaurants. What is certain is that it is now everywhere, served at braais, at funerals and weddings, in lunchboxes, tinned and sold in supermarkets. Its usefulness is in its flexibility. It works hot as a side dish, cold as a relish, spooned over pap, alongside grilled meat, or in a sandwich. It is light, quick, keeps well, and gets better after a day. Grated carrot is near universal, baked beans are common though not obligatory, and the heat level varies from mild to considerable depending on who is making it. It is naturally vegan in its standard form, which is unusual for a dish that spends most of its life next to grilled meat.

South AfricaFoodChef

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

A no-bake cheesecake with a digestive biscuit base, a cream cheese and mascarpone filling loosened with peanut butter, a layer of peanut butter fudge, and a chocolate ganache on top. No country is named and none applies: this is a modern dessert of the kind made everywhere. It sits in Worldwide Recipes for that reason. Nothing in it is regional. Digestive biscuits are British, mascarpone Italian, and the peanut butter and chocolate pairing is North American in origin. That combination is now international and belongs to no particular kitchen. Africa's own peanut desserts are quite different and worth naming, since peanuts are one of the continent's defining crops. Kuli kuli is the Nigerian fried peanut snack. Meni-meniyong is the Malian sesame and honey brittle. Nkate cake is Ghanaian peanut brittle. None of them resembles a cheesecake. Two practical notes: nothing here is baked, so the times are chilling times rather than cooking, and the source's ingredient list has section headings tangled into it, which has been reconstructed against the method. Contains peanuts.

South Africa1 hrChef.donkey

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.

South Africa50 minAmara

Three-layer carrot cake with cream cheese frosting

Super Soft Carrot Cake

A three-layer carrot cake spiced with cinnamon and mixed spice, drizzled with orange juice while still warm, and filled with cream cheese frosting. The contributor is South African, and the cake is presented as a fixture of tea parties and meetings there. Carrot cake is European in origin, so it sits in Worldwide Recipes. Its ancestry runs back to medieval carrot puddings, made at a time when sweeteners were expensive and carrots were among the sweetest things available, which is the grain of truth behind the source's note that carrots were once used to sweeten confectionery. The modern iced cake is a twentieth-century development, and its firm adoption into South African home baking is real and worth recording, even though the dish is not African in origin. Two things about this version are its own. Treacle sugar, alongside brown sugar, is a distinctly South African ingredient and gives a deeper, more molasses-like flavour than brown sugar alone. And the orange juice poured over the layers as they come out of the oven is what the title's "super soft" refers to, the same principle as soaking a sponge in syrup, using juice instead. The source's ingredient list garbles the frosting quantities. The proportions here come from its written recipe, which is coherent.

South Africa2 hrTshego Stone

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Baked Teriyaki Chicken is a straightforward oven-baked chicken dish coated in a sweet and savoury homemade teriyaki glaze made from soy sauce, sugar, garlic, and ginger. The sauce reduces and caramelises in the oven, creating a sticky, glossy coating that makes this one of the most satisfying and crowd-pleasing weeknight meals. This dish reflects the global reach of South African home cooking, where Japanese-inspired sauces and techniques have been adapted into everyday family meals alongside more traditional South African dishes. It is particularly popular for its ease and consistent results.

South AfricaFoodChef

Beetroot Pancakes

Beetroot pancakes are ordinary pancakes with cooked beetroot blended into the batter, which turns them deep pink and adds an earthy sweetness. The beetroot does two things. It colours the batter dramatically, which is most of the appeal and the main reason the recipe exists for children. And it contributes moisture and a mild natural sweetness, so the pancakes need less sugar than a plain batter would. They are made in the ordinary way, blended, rested briefly, cooked on a moderately hot pan, and the technique holds no surprises. Cooking them slightly slower than plain pancakes helps, because the extra moisture from the beetroot means the middle needs a little longer while the outside is already colouring. Served with fresh fruit or berries on top, which is the usual suggestion, they make a breakfast that looks considerably more elaborate than it is. **Filed as Worldwide**, the source describes it as a Continental recipe, and it makes no African claim. The page is kept and reclassified rather than removed.

South Africa1 hrFoodChef

Bobotie

Bobotie is South Africa's national dish, a fragrant, mildly spiced minced meat bake topped with a savoury egg custard and baked until golden. The meat is seasoned with curry powder, turmeric, chutney, and raisins, creating a sweet-savoury balance that is characteristic of Cape Malay cooking. Bay leaves are tucked into the meat mixture before the custard is poured over, and they perfume the entire dish during baking. Bobotie is a dish that rewards patience, the careful spicing, the slow-cooked meat, and the careful baking that produces a perfectly set custard without cracks. It is served at South African family tables for Sunday lunch, at celebrations, and at restaurants worldwide as a window into South Africa's uniquely multicultural food culture.

South AfricaBeatrice

South African Lamb Sosaties on a braai grill, spiced lamb and apricot skewers marinated in Cape Malay curry and tamarind

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.

South Africa1 hr 15 minCuisine228

Koeksisters, plaited South African doughnuts soaked in cold syrup

Koeksister (South African Syrup Doughnut)

Koeksisters are plaited strips of dough deep-fried and then plunged straight into ice-cold syrup, so they stay crisp outside while the syrup soaks into the middle. They are Afrikaner, and they are one of the most recognisable South African sweets. The temperature contrast is the whole technique and it is non-negotiable. Hot koeksister into ice-cold syrup: the sudden difference makes the pastry draw syrup deep inside while the outside stays crisp rather than dissolving. Warm syrup gives you a soggy, sticky mess. This is why the recipe makes you cool half the syrup over ice and keep the other half in the fridge, swapping when the first batch warms up, a detail that looks fussy and is actually essential. The name has two accounts. Koek is Dutch for cake; sister is variously explained as the plaiting of two sisters' doughnuts, or as sis, the sizzle the dough makes hitting the oil. Neither is settled. There is a second, quite different koesister, the Cape Malay version, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and aniseed, rolled in coconut, softer and more like a spiced doughnut. The two are often confused and are genuinely distinct. The source lists half an egg, which is awkward but correct at this scale.

South Africa1 hr 20 minJennifer

Malva Pudding

Malva pudding is a spongy baked pudding with apricot jam in the batter, drenched in a hot cream and butter sauce the moment it leaves the oven. It is South African, of Cape Dutch origin, and it is one of the country's best-known desserts. The sauce is the point. A hot pudding absorbs a hot liquid readily, and pouring the cream, butter and sugar mixture over the pudding straight from the oven is what turns a plain sponge into malva pudding. The source is right that it should be moistened rather than swimming, the sauce should soak in, not pool. Three ingredients are doing more than they appear to. Apricot jam gives both moisture and a faint fruit note that is characteristic of the dish. Vinegar provides the acid that bicarbonate of soda needs to react with, since there is no other acid in the batter. And the small quantity of butter is deliberate, malva pudding is not a rich batter, because the richness arrives afterwards in the sauce. The name is unresolved. It is often said to come from the Afrikaans for marshmallow, describing the texture, and sometimes from malvasia wine. Neither is established, and both have been recorded as claims. A chocolate version exists on this site as a separate page.

South Africa1 hrFoodChef

Pork carnitas braised in milk and orange, crisped at the edges

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.

South Africa2 hr 50 minFoodChef

Pork loin chops in an apple cider pan sauce

Pork Loin Chops in Cider Sauce

Pork loin chops browned and then baked in apple cider with Worcestershire sauce, finished with a sherry-reduced pan sauce. No country is claimed; it is an autumn dish in a broadly Northern European register. The technique that matters is the one the source explains best. Pork loin is very lean and usually cut thin, so it dries out faster than almost any other chop, the fix is to brown it hard for colour and then finish it in liquid, which is exactly what this method does. Braising is also why the source recommends shoulder chops as a second choice: they have more gristle, and braising is what breaks that down. Two gaps worth naming. The article promises onions, garlic, thyme, cream and apple slices; none of those appear in the ingredient list or the method. And the ingredient list itself is mangled, one entry runs four separate seasonings together into a single unbroken string. The dish contains both dry sherry and apple cider concentrate. The alcohol in the sherry largely cooks off during the reduction, but it is worth knowing it is there. The source recommends serving it over sweet potato and swede mash.

South Africa50 minFoodChef

Yorkshire Pudding

A batter of eggs, flour, milk and water poured into smoking hot fat and baked until it quadruples in volume. It is British, and it sits in Worldwide Recipes with its URL unchanged. It is one of the few dishes where the physics is the recipe. The batter must go into fat that is genuinely smoking hot, the instant heat turns the water in the batter to steam, which inflates the structure before the egg and flour set around it. Fat that is merely hot gives you a flat, greasy disc. Preheating the tin with the fat in it for a full ten minutes is not padding. The overnight rest is the other thing that separates good Yorkshires from adequate ones. Resting lets the flour hydrate fully and the gluten relax, which produces a more dramatic rise. The source says up to three days in the fridge and it is right, the batter genuinely improves. This recipe is unusually precise, giving weights in grams alongside cup measures, which is rare in the archive and welcome. The water alongside the milk is deliberate: water produces more steam than milk, so it rises higher, while the milk gives flavour and colour. Beef dripping is traditional. Lard, shortening and vegetable oil all work. Africa has no equivalent, though popovers and Dutch baby pancakes are relatives.

South Africa35 minNympha

Recettes South Africa

South African Peri Peri Chicken

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

Chakalaka

Pork Loin Chops in Cider Sauce

Malva Pudding

Koeksister (South African Syrup Doughnut)

Dried Apricot and Lamb Sosaties

Hertzoggies

Buttermilk Rusks

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Plats emblématiques : South Africa

Recettes South Africa les plus populaires

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Potjiekos (Afrikaans Stew on the Fire)

Mebos

Chicken Pie (Traditional South African Style)

Chocolate Malva Pudding

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Peri Peri Sausage Rolls

Picnic Bread (From South Africa)

Buttermilk Rusks

Hertzoggies

Chakalaka

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

South African Peri Peri Chicken

Super Soft Carrot Cake

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Beetroot Pancakes

Bobotie

Dried Apricot and Lamb Sosaties

Koeksister (South African Syrup Doughnut)

Malva Pudding

Orange and Milk Braised Pork Carnitas

Pork Loin Chops in Cider Sauce

Yorkshire Pudding

Recettes South Africa

Recettes à la une

South African Peri Peri Chicken

Malva Pudding

Koeksister (South African Syrup Doughnut)

Dried Apricot and Lamb Sosaties

Hertzoggies

Buttermilk Rusks

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Plats emblématiques : South Africa

Recettes South Africa les plus populaires

Dombolo (Dumplings or Steamed Bread)

Potjiekos (Afrikaans Stew on the Fire)

Mebos

Chicken Pie (Traditional South African Style)

Chocolate Malva Pudding

Peppermint Crisp Tart

Peri Peri Sausage Rolls

Picnic Bread (From South Africa)

Buttermilk Rusks

Hertzoggies

Chakalaka

Peanut Butter Cheesecake

South African Peri Peri Chicken

Super Soft Carrot Cake

Baked Teriyaki Chicken

Beetroot Pancakes

Bobotie

Dried Apricot and Lamb Sosaties

Koeksister (South African Syrup Doughnut)

Malva Pudding

Orange and Milk Braised Pork Carnitas

Pork Loin Chops in Cider Sauce

Yorkshire Pudding