As South Africans, most of us grew up around the braai. Families get together, friendships get formed and a great time is had by all!
Every family has their special braai recipe or side dish that they can’t do without; pot bread, pap and sheba, a green salad. It doesn’t matter what you prefer, we all spend a lot of time outside cooking meat or veggie steaks.
Below are a few essential recipes for the perfect braai. If you need to upgrade your braaier, have a look at what is advertised on Junk Mail here.
Ingredients:
- 1 tot salt (I like to use high-quality salt flakes and then crush them.)
- 1/2 tot ground black pepper
- 1/2 tot paprika
- 1/2 tot crushed garlic powder
- 1/2 tot ground coriander
- 1 tsp cayenne pepper (or chilli powder)
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp ground cloves
- 1 tsp ground nutmeg
- 1 tsp ground allspice (pimento)
Method
If some of the ingredients are too big or coarse, solve the problem by taking them for a spin in your coffee grinder or give them some love in your pestle and mortar.
Put all the ingredients in a glass jar, then close the lid and shake it well. Use as needed to season steak, chops or chicken. The salt mix also works very well as a dry rub on large meat cuts like beef brisket or pork belly.
Over time you might develop more than one mixture for different meats. For chicken you might want to drop the cloves and the nutmeg and add an item like parsley.
Perhaps your pork spice will also have some mustard powder in it, for example. But then you would have to kick out one of the other ingredients, as there are already ten, which is a nice round number. Who wants his own tailor-made braai salt with eleven ingredients?
Ingredients
- ½ cup red or white wine
- 1 teaspoon star anise
- 1 bay leaf
- 5 pepper corns
- 1 whole lemon, sliced
- 3 whole cloves garlic, flattened with blade of a knife
- 1 teaspoon sugar
- Salt and pepper to taste
Method:
Mix all the ingredients and use on meat. Let the meat stand for about an hour in the sauce before putting it on the braai.
Pap
Ingredients
- 4 cups of water
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp butter
- 2 ½ cups maize meal
Method:
Pour the water into a large pot, add the salt and butter and bring to the boil.
Slowly pour the maize meal into the pot to form a cone in the centre but don’t stir!
Cover with the lid, reduce the heat to low and allow the pap to simmer for 5 minutes.
Using a large fork (such as a carving fork), stir it until crumbly and cover again with the lid. Simmer for an hour on low heat.
Sheba
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 2 red onions, halved and sliced
- 1 tin tomato purée
- 600g punnet of baby rosa tomatoes, halved
- ½ cup of dry white wine
- 2 tsp Worcester sauce
- 3 tbsp of chopped fresh herbs (I used 1 tbsp each of oregano, parsley and coriander)
- 2 tsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp salt
- Freshly ground black pepper to taste
Method
Heat the olive oil in a small pot or saucepan and fry the onions until translucent.
Add all the ingredients to the pot and allow the sauce to simmer for approximately 1 hour.
Serve hot with pap and garnish with fresh herbs.
Enjoy your braai this weekend and remember to sell those extra braai items on Junk Mail!
Why don’t you share your braai recipe with the rest of us?
