South African Recipes

From Chakalaka Boerewors to Peri Peri Spiced Rice, Beetroot Pancakes to Cape Malay Yellow Rice. Everything South African cooks, as it is cooked at home.

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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.

1 hrEasySouth Africa

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

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Peri Peri Spiced Rice

This is rice cooked in a peri peri spiced tomato and vegetable base, served with a lemon and garlic coconut yoghurt alongside. It belongs to the southern African peri peri tradition, and no single country is named in the source. Peri peri itself is Mozambican and Angolan, built on the African bird's eye chilli that naturalised there after Portuguese traders brought chillies from South America. The seasoning blend here is a dry rub of salt, chilli, onion powder, garlic powder, ground coriander and oregano, which is the restaurant-style formulation rather than the fresh sauce. The technique is the interesting part and the contributor is emphatic about it. The rice cooks in just enough water to cover it, under a lid on a low flame, until every drop has gone, and it then rests for ten minutes untouched. The instruction in the source is in capitals: leave the rice alone, because the aim is a crust on the bottom of the pan. That is the same principle behind Persian tahdig, Senegalese thieboudienne and Spanish socarrat, and it turns a side dish into something worth the pan.

35 minEasySouth Africa

Recipe by Chef.donkey · Africook

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South African Stewed Green Beans

Green beans cooked slowly with potato and onion until everything is completely soft, then roughly mashed and finished with butter and nutmeg. It is South African, and it is old-fashioned in the best sense. The dish exists for a specific reason and the source is refreshingly honest about it: this is what to do with green beans that have gone past their best. Beans that are too tough and stringy to steam and serve whole become excellent when cooked long and mashed, because the slow cooking breaks down exactly the fibres that made them unpleasant. It is a technique for rescuing produce rather than showcasing it, which is why it belongs to an older way of cooking. The potato is structural. It breaks down completely and binds the mash, which is why the dish holds together rather than being beans in water. Nutmeg with green beans is a Cape Dutch habit, and the same pairing turns up across South African vegetable cookery. It is not a garnish, it is what makes the dish taste South African rather than generically braised. The source is also honest that quantities do not matter much, which is true of most old traditional recipes and rarely admitted. Do not mash it to a purée. Texture is meant to survive.

50 minEasySouth Africa

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

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Cape Malay Yellow Rice

Rice cooked with turmeric, cinnamon, raisins and sugar into a sweet golden side dish. It is South African, from the Cape Malay tradition, and it is served alongside savoury curries and meat. Sweet rice as a savoury accompaniment is the thing to understand. Cape Malay yellow rice contains sugar, raisins and cinnamon, and it goes with curry, bobotie and roast meat, the sweetness is deliberately set against savoury and spiced food rather than served as a dessert. That contrast runs right through Cape Malay cooking and it is the same instinct behind bobotie's fruit chutney and the apricot jam in pickled fish. The community it comes from was formed by people brought to the Cape from Southeast Asia as slaves and political exiles by the Dutch from the seventeenth century onwards, and the dish is one of many that carries that history directly. Related yellow rices exist across the world, nasi kuning in Indonesia, kaha buth in Sri Lanka, and the family resemblance is not coincidental. Turmeric is what colours it. Saffron is used in more expensive versions and annatto elsewhere. **A significant problem with this page.** Its ingredient list merges two separate recipes, a yellow rice and a marinated roast chicken, into one list, and its method covers both. Only the rice belongs here.

50 minEasySouth Africa

Recipe by AnthonyJ · Africook

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South African Recipes

Beetroot Pancakes

Peri Peri Spiced Rice

South African Stewed Green Beans

Cape Malay Yellow Rice

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