Friday 11th saw our South African supperclub. Whilst it seems few people are aware of this cuisine, the UK actually has quite a large population of South Africans – and we seem to know quite a few of them! We were introduced to their delicious food a few years ago and, especially as a lot of it is maize based and therefore gluten free, and they like their meat, and their spices, it is a cuisine I’ve fallen in love with.
We started off the evening with a selection of tasty mouthfuls. I made some lamb Frikkadels – lightly spiced meatballs that were dusted with chickpea flour and more spices, fried then finished off in the oven. We purchased some gluten free boerewors sausages from Villagers in Beckenham (who have over 50 varieties of gluten free sausages by the way). I took them out of their casings, rolled them into balls and in the spicy flour and fried them off. I also made my (in)famous slappap and cheese fried dumplings. These were served on a bed of my own recipe chakalaka.
These were all well received – which was good as we had 5 South Africans at the table and I was very concerned as to whether or not they would find my food good enough! One lady asked me if I could produce jars of my sauce so that she could give them as gifts to her SA friends – so I think that meant I did ok!
We followed that with bunny chows. This delightfully named Durban dish traditionally consists of a loaf hollowed out and filled with curry, possibly originating from the large migrant Indian community in that area using a loaf as a means of transporting curry out in to the fields where they worked.
I had worked all week tweaking my gluten free bread recipe until I was, finally, very happy with it. The bread not only smells like real bread, soft, airy and light, but also actually tears apart like real bread.
After doing a happy gluten free bread dance (if you are a coeliac reading this, you’ll understand!) I made another batch as bread rolls. These were scooped out and filled with chicken curry – using the GORGEOUS recipe by Monika at The Spice Club supperclub.
A guest declared it the best bunny chow they’d ever eaten – my grin got even bigger!
Our main course was of course bobotie, the spiced minced meat and savoury custard dish considered by some to be the national dish of South Africa. It is a firm favourite in this house. We often make the mince up even without the egg custard topping.
The dish was originally made with mutton and pork, though we have always made it with beef. As one guest however does not eat beef we decided to use lamb and pork mince for the supperclub dish.
The lamb and pork mixture made a far moister dish than usual and the custard seemed to sink into the mixture more rather than sitting on top. The result was incredibly delicious even if it didn’t hold together the same and therefore looked rather inelegant on the plate. We served it with a classic yellow rice – rice cooked with butter, cinamon, sugar, salt and turmeric. No vegetables – this WAS a South African dinner after all lol – but we did put a bottle of Mrs Ball’s Chutney on the table!
For dessert we had made a Melktert – a classic South African milk tart. Some are made as a baked custard, others cooked on the stove and then poured into a pre-cooked pastry case and chilled till firm. We chose to bake ours.
I deliberately didn’t make it as sweet as some as the other dessert was very sweet.
I dusted the top with a mixture of icing sugar and ground dried naartjie (tangerine) peel that I’d made myself earlier in the week.
The second dessert was Dadelpoeding (date pudding) which is also know as Cape Brandy pudding or typsy tart. This is a lovely baked date sponge pudding which has a very strong brandy syrup poured over the top of it as it comes out of the oven.
With coffee – or rooibos tea - we served Soetkoekies, a lovely spiced sweet biscuit made with a sweet wine (I used port) that turned out great simply made with Dove’s Plain Flour instead of all purpose flour.
Our guests enjoyed the evening and we had some lovely comments left in our Visitor’s Book – written in Afrikaans! After the guests left we used Google Translate to work out what they’d said and were relieved to find it was all positive!























