South African Recipes

Creamy Samp

Samp is dried maize kernels, stamped to crack the hulls and break the grain into coarse pieces. It is eaten in place of rice or mealie meal across South Africa, and it holds a chewy, distinctly grainy texture that neither of those has. Different communities cook it differently: with beans as umngqusho, on its own with a little seasoning, or with meat worked through it. Its defining property used to be time. Conventional samp takes about three hours, which puts it beyond a weekday for most households and placed it firmly at weddings, traditional ceremonies and funerals. There is a South African joke that turns on exactly this: warn someone about risky behaviour and the reply is that everyone will eat samp at the funeral, because that was the reliable place to find it on a menu. Quick cook samp changed that. Processed to cook in around thirty minutes, it moved the dish from the occasion to the ordinary week, and the reason it caught on is as much about electricity as about time. Three hours on a stove is expensive in a country with an unreliable supply. This creamy version, finished with mushroom, cheese and milk, is what samp looks like once it stopped being ceremonial.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hr 10 minEasySouth Africa

Recipe by Tshego Stone · Africook

Cape Malay Chicken Curry

Cape Malay cooking is the food of a community formed by force. From the 17th century the Dutch East India Company brought enslaved people and political exiles to the Cape from Indonesia, Malaysia, Bengal, India and Madagascar, and what they built at the southern tip of Africa, working with local ingredients and their own inherited techniques, became one of South Africa's defining cuisines. The chicken curry shows the method clearly. Cape Malay curries use whole spices dropped into the pot rather than the ground masalas of most Indian cooking, and those spices, cinnamon stick, cardamom, fennel and cumin seed, are often lifted out before serving. That produces a curry that is aromatic rather than thick and heavy, and it is one of the clearest technical differences between the two traditions. Sweetness is the other Cape Malay signature. Mango chutney and a little sugar go in near the end, and that sweet note against the chilli and the spice is what people recognise. It is served with Cape Malay yellow rice, coloured with turmeric and studded with raisins, along with roti and a fresh sambal of tomato, onion and cucumber. The community's food is now eaten across every South African community, which is a legacy no one who was brought to the Cape in chains could have chosen or predicted.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hr 40 minMediumSouth Africa

Recipe by Debby · Africook

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.

1 hr 20 minMediumSouth Africa

Recipe by Jennifer · Africook

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.

1 hrEasySouth Africa

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook