Recettes

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

HardSouth Africa

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

Cape Malay Pickled Fish

Firm white fish, floured and fried, then layered under a sweet-sour curried onion sauce and left in the fridge for at least a day before it is eaten. It is Cape Malay, it is South African, and in Cape Town it is inseparable from Easter. The Cape Malay community descends from people brought to the Cape from Southeast Asia, largely from the Indonesian archipelago, as slaves and political exiles by the Dutch from the seventeenth century onwards. Their cooking is the origin of much of what is now considered characteristically Cape cuisine, and pickled fish belongs squarely to it, the turmeric, the coriander seed, the bay leaves and the sweet-sour balance are all markers of that lineage. The Easter association is real but the explanations for it vary, and the dish is not exclusively Christian: it is eaten in Muslim Cape Malay households too, which is one of the reasons the "made for Good Friday" account is contested. Its practical origin is simpler. Vinegar and sugar preserve cooked fish for weeks without refrigeration, which mattered a great deal in the early colonial Cape. It genuinely improves with time. A day in the fridge is the minimum; two or three is better, and it holds for several weeks. The source's nutritional claims have not been carried across.

50 minMediumSouth Africa

Recette de Amara · Africook

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