Many thanks to “Richard” for sending in this South African Recipe for Cape Malay Koeksisers. If you have any African recipes that you would like to share, please contact me.

Cape Malay Koeksister

The success of this recipe depends on the smoothness of the potato mixture.
Makes: 36

Ingredients:
• 6 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
• 250ml (1 cup) milk
• 60ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil
• 60g butter, melted
• 1 large egg, lightly beaten
• 1 packet (10ml/2 teaspoons) instant yeast
• 60ml (¼ cup) sugar
• 5 x 250ml (5 cups) flour
• 5ml ( 1 teaspoon) salt
• 7ml (1 ½ teaspoons) ground cinnamon
• 5ml (1 teaspoons) ground ginger
• 2ml (½ teaspoon) ground cloves
• 5ml (1 teaspoon) ground naartjie peel
• 2ml (½ teaspoon) ground cardamom
• 5ml (1 teaspoon) whole aniseed
• Vegetable oil for deep frying

Syrup:
• 250ml (1 cup) water
• 250ml (1 cup) sugar
• 2 green cardamom pods
• 1 stick cassia, or cinnamon
• Desiccated coconut, for sprinkling over

Preparation:
• Boil the potatoes in water until sift.
• Drain and mash roughly.
• Add the milk, 60ml (¼ cup) vegetable oil, butter and egg.
• Mash well making sure there are absolutely no lumps.
• Place the yeast, sugar, flour, salt and all the spices in a large mixing bowl.
• Add the mashed potato mixture and mix well to form a smooth dough.
• Cover the dough with cling wrap and leave in a warm place to rise until doubled in volume (about 1 hour).
• Knock down the dough and turn out onto a well-floured surface.
• Form into oblong shapes (60mm x 25mm or 2 ½ inch x 1 inch) and allow to rise for 15 minutes.
• Deep fry in hot oil until golden brown.
• Remove with a slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper towel.

To make The Syrup:
• Place all the ingredients for the syrup in a saucepan and bring to the boil.
• Stir over low heat until syrup forms a film on the spoon.
• Dip the koeksisters in the hot syrup.

To Serve:
• Sprinkle with coconut on all sides.

Related Links:

• African Recipes Home Page
• Another recipe for Koeksisters

I was  introduced to the South African Vetkoek, whilst studding to be come a field guide (safari guide) in the Limpopo region of  South Africa, but their history goes back to the days of the Voortrekkers who found it much quicker and easier to make than bread.

Pronounced ‘Fet Cook’, they are delicious alternative to bread and can be eaten as a savoury dish, served with a beef mince sauce, or sweet with golden syrup or apricot jam and a with a cup of strong black coffee.

Basically Vetkoek are deep fried dough balls (buns) and are similar to Dutch “oliebollen”, the main diference being that oliebollen are sweet and contains raisins.

The traditional way to make vetkoek is to use a yeast bread dough, but as with this quick and simple vetkoek recipe, you can use baking powder as the raising agent.

Vetkoek Ingredients

• 2 cups (500 ml) flour
• 2 teaspoons (10 ml) baking powder

Or you can replace the flour and baking powder with self-raising flour

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• ½ t (2 ml) salt
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup (250 ml) milk
• Enough oil for deep-frying (about 12 cm deep)

Method

1. Sift the flour, baking powder and the salt together
2. Whisk the egg, milk and sugar
3. Make a well in the dry ingredients, add milk and egg mixture and mix to very soft dough. Add more milk if necessary.
4. Heat the oil to between 180 °C and 190°C.
5. Ladle level spoonfuls of batter into the hot oil (12 cm deep) and bake until brown on both sides, before removing from oil.
6. Use towel paper to absorb the excess oil.

Done. It is as simple as that!

Long before you could just go to the shops and buy “Ouma Rusks”, real life grannies would actually make them for their families. It’s true I promise!

In South Africa, the are known as Beskuit (South African rusks) and are brilliant to dunk in your morning tea or coffee and make great snacks for rumbling tummies; morning, noon and night. They are also still used as a traditional way to treat stay-over guests by waking them with a tray of freshly brewed coffee and rusks.

So if you now live somewhere where you can’t just go to the store and buys rusks, or if you just fancy making them for yourself, below is the recipe:

Ingredients:

“Slip an extra shrimp on the barbie” the phrase coined by actor Paul Hogan, has come to stand for what most outsiders imagine is an Australian BBQ. Actually Australians use the word prawns and not shrimps and they hardly ever put prawns on the barbie, which is a shame as there are some excellent prawn bbq sauce recipes.

Whatever the case BBQ’s are really popular in Australia which like South Africa has loads of sunshine and a laid back way of life perfect for barbecuing.

This article is part of my best BBQ sauce recipes from all around the world, so also check out the best braai sauce recipe from South Africa, best barbecue sauce recipe from the UK, best BBQ sauce recipe from Australia and the best barbeque sauce recipe from Argentina.

Lets get cracking, here are my best BBQ Sauce Recipes:

BBQ Sauce Recipe for Beef Spare ribs

A really simple bbq sauce, in fact to make the sauce there, no actual cooking is required! It is perfect as a marinade or for basting onto beef spare ribs.

BBQ Sauce ingredients

• 1 tablespoon cider vinegar
• 2 teaspoons mustard powder
• 1 teaspoon chilli powder
• I teaspoom of ground mace
• Half a teaspoon salt
• 2/3 cup tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons each brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice

To Make the BBQ Sauce:
Super simple to make, just place all the sauce ingredients in a small bowl and stir together.

Beef Spare Rib marinade
To marinade the spare ribs, pour the BBQ sauce into a large shallow non metallic container and then add the ribs, mix together, cover and refrigerate overnight, turning the ribs a few times. Cook on the BBQ and enjoy!

Argentina Barbeque Sauce Recipe: Chimichurri

In Argentina, they serve Chimichurri barbeque sauce alongside their famous flame grilled steaks and tastes great on on rare, char-grilled, flank steak. It can also be used as a marinade and is very popular in many Latin American countries.

Chimichurri BBQ Sauce ingredients

• Half a cup of olive oil
• Quarter Cup of Red Wine Vinegar
• Quarter Cup Water
• 1 Tablespoon dried oregano
• 1 Tablespoon paprika
• 1 Teaspoon bay leaf (laurel); very small flakes
• 1 Tablespoon coarse salt
• 1 Teaspoon ground black pepper
• Half a cup of chopped leaf-parsley (fresh)
• 1 medium onion; finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic; finely grated
• Half a red bell pepper, de-seeded and finely diced
• 1 tomato, peeled, de-seeded, finely chopped
• Some hot chili flakes to taste

To Make the Chimichurri Sauce:

• Combine all of ingredients in a large bowl except for the oil and vinegar. Toss well to make sure that the salt is spread evenly around the ingredients. Leave to stand for 30 minutes.
• The next step is to mix in the vinegar and water, again leave for 30 minutes.
• The last step is to add the oil, mixing well. It is important to ensure that the liquids cover the rest of the ingredients. If they do not, add equal parts of oil, water, and vinegar until they are covered. Transfer the sauce to a non metallic bowl or jar that can be covered and put in the refrigerator to allow the flavors to marinade overnight. For the ultimate sauce, prepare at least two or even three days ahead.

This recipe is part of a series of the best barbecue sauce recipes from around the world, including the USA, the best braai sauce recipe from South Africa, best BBQ sauce recipe from Australia and the best barbeque sauce recipe from Argentina. View all BBQ Sauce Recipes >>

The best BBQ Ideas…
If  you have another BBQ sauce recipe, please send it in and help make this the ultimate braai / bbq / barbecue / barbeque sauce recipe resource ever!

Braai Sauce Recipe

For the best braai sauce recipes, I have mostly gone on what I learnt as a child growing up in Zimbabwe. Commercial braai sauces were not available in the shops and we only went down to South Africa for the traditional beach holiday in Durban once every two years, so we made our own braai sauces and marinades, here are a few of my favourites. For those of you who don’t know a South African braai is our (including Zimbabwean) word for barbecue/ barbeque/ BBQ.

This recipe is part of my section on the best BBQ sauces from around the world the other sections include: the best barbecue sauce recipe from the USA, best BBQ sauce recipe from Australia and the best barbeque sauce recipe from Argentina, you can then try them out and let me know which you think is best!

Ok lets get started on the best Braai Sauce Recipe from South Africa:

South African Braai Sauce Recipe

This is a braai sauce recipe that we often used, it can also be used as a marinade or for basting your meat on the braai, you can then use the rest as a braai sauce.

Braai Sauce ingredients

• 3 or 4 cloves of garlic, crushed or grated
• 2 medium onions, chopped
• 1 green sweet pepper, de-seeded and chopped
• 50 ml brown vinegar
• 15 ml cooking oil
• 1 tin whole tomatoes, chopped (don’t buy a tin of chopped tomatoes as they are not a good quality)
• 1 tablespoon of tomato paste
• 30 ml Worcestershire sauce
• 2 ml Tabasco Sauce, you can use cayenne pepper as a substitute
• 50 ml brown sugar
• 5 ml French mustard
• 30 ml fruit chutney – preferably Mrs Balls Original Chutney

To Make the Braai Sauce:
Making this braai sauce is really easy, all you have to do is:

1. Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan
2. Fry the onions, garlic and sweet pepper until the onions are translucent.
3. Add the vinegar and the remaining ingredients and simmer for 30 minutes.

South African Babotie Recipe

Babotie like many other classic South African recipes reflects the diversity of South African culture. The spices in babotie come from Indonesia, whilst the Dutch introduced ground meat (mince) to South African and Babotie, like shepherds pie from England used to be made with leftovers from the Sunday roast. The original recipe is likely to have come from the Dutch East India Company and their colonies in Indonesia, with the name coming from the Indonesian Bobotok.

Babotie has spread throughout Africa with the settlers and you can find different versions of the recipe in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and Kenya. Interestingly there is also a variation of babotie in Argentina brought by the boer settlers from the early 20th century where the babotie is placed into a pumpkin and then baked.

The meat in Babotie
The original recipe of babotie was mad with pork and mutton, today most recipes for babotie are made with beef or lamb.

Babotie Fruit and Spices
Babotie is not an overly spicy dish and because it often contains fruit (dried apricots and raisins or sultanas) the flavour is well balanced. Babotie can be traced right back to the 17th century in the Cape and these original recipes would have contained ginger, majoram and lemon rind. The later introduction of Curry Powder has made the recipe much easier to make, but the basic principals still remain the same.

Classic South African Babotie Recipe (Beef)

Babotie Ingredients, To make a classic South African Babotie you will need:

• 2 – 2 1/4 pounds good quality lean ground beef
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 2 peeled and sliced onions
• 1 thickish slice of white bread
• 1 cup milk
• 1 tablespoon medium curry powder – you can also have hot if you wish
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 2 teaspoons salt
• freshly grated pepper (about a half teaspoon)
• 3/4 teaspoon turmeric
• 1 1/2 tablespoons malt vinegar
• 1/2 cup seedless raisins
• 2 tablespoons strong chutney (Mrs balls Mango is the best for this)
• 2 bay leaves (or fresh lemon leaves if available)
• 2 medium eggs

To make Babotie, first preheat the oven to about 180 C

Heat the oil in a saucepan add the onions and cook until soft. Add your minced beef and cook through.

During this time, soak your bread in the milk, remove excess milk (not all of it) and then mash the bread with the fork. Keep the milk as you will need it later.

Add your bread, curry powder, sugar, salt, pepper, turmeric, vinegar, raisins, chutney to the beef mixture and cook for a few minutes. Becareful, because of the bread it can easily burn.

Once cooked, spoon the mixture into a baking dish, and place the bay leaves on top. Bake in the oven for about 50 minutes. Meanwhile beat the eggs into the milk mixture and then carefully pour over the beef mixture about 25 minutes before the end of the baking time, this will form a lovely crust on the top.

Serve the Babotie with steamed yellow rice, sliced bananas and extra chutney.

Traditional South African Sosaties Recipe

In Zimbabwe as kids, we often called them skewers, here in the UK they call meat on a skewer a kebab. They call a braai a barbeque (BBQ) but what ever the name, it is hard to beat the traditional South African Lamb Sosatie on a real charcoal or wood braai!

Lamb Sosaties on the braai
Below are the ingredients and the method to making the perfect Lamb Sosatie for the braai. You can use other types of meat like chicken or beef, but lamb always seems to taste the best.

Lamb Sosaties Recipe

Lamb sosatie Ingredients, To make traditional South African Lamb sosatie you will need:

• 500g Lamb (boned shoulder or leg of lamb)
• 2 large onions
• 50ml olive oil
• 4 cloves of gralic
• 1 tablespoon of curry powder
• tumeric 1 x teaspoon
• brown sugar 1 x tablespoon
• 4 crushed bay leaves
• 1 x tablespoon of lemon juice
• 2 x lemons cut into small wedges
• 120ml meat stock
• 125g dried apricots
• 1 x green pepper cut into bite size pieces to fit onto the kebab
• butter
• Skewer sticks

To make the Lamb Sosaties, first cut the lamb up ito 25mm cubes, slice one onion into wedges (for the skewer – you could use shalotts) and the other chop finely, peel and crush the garlic. Heat the butter in a saucepan and sauté the chopped onion, garlic and curry powder for a few minutes. Add the tumeric, lemon and meat stock, bring to the boil.

The put the meat in a non-metal bowl with the bay leaves at the bottom. As soon as the marinade comes to the boil, pour it over your meat mixture and then allow it to cool and place in the fridge to marinade overnight.

The next day when you are ready for the braai (barbeque), skewer the meat, apricots, green pepper and onion wedges (shallots) onto the sticks.

For the sauce, pour the leftover marinade into a saucepan, add some butter and salt and pepper to taste, bring to the boil and serve warm with the sosaties and lemon wedges.

The best way to cook the sosaties is over a hot braai (barbeque) turning them as you go, but you can also cook them under a grill.

As a variation, and if you like hot food, why not try adding crushed chillies, more garlic and some peri-peri to the marinade.

UK – Southern Africa Cookbooks on Amazon.co.uk

USA – Southern Africa Cookbooks on Amazon.com

Ok, that’s it for now, if you would like to contribute to this section, check out the page on writing for Chirundu.com otherwise check back soon for some more African Food Recipes and Ideas.

Koeksisters are basically a South African syrup-coated twisted doughnut (sounds good already!) They originally come from the Cape Malay people in South Africa where their koeksister recipe has a texture a little like cake, is spicy and is often coated in dried coconut. The Afrikaners have a slightly different koeksuster recipe that is more crispy and sweeter with more syrup on them.

The word Koeksister actually comes from the Dutch word for small cake – koekje. Nowdays they are usually eaten as a snack, often at a rugby match or possibly at a braai. Koeksisters are really easy to make and the recipe for the crispy, syrupy version of koeksisters is below.

Koeksisters Recipe

Below are the ingredients and method on how to make traditional South African Koeksisters.  If anyone has the recipe for the Cape Malay version of Koeksusters please send it in.

Koeksisters Ingredients, To make traditional South African Koeksisters you will need:

For the Koeksister Batter:

• 1 egg beaten
• 2 cups flour
• 6 tablespoons of milk
• 6 tablespoons of butter (margarine can also work)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 teaspoon of salt

The koeksister syrup:

• 4 cups sugar
• 1 cup water
• 1 teaspoon of cream of tartar
• ½ teaspoon of tartaric acid
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence or
• 1 teaspoon of grated orange rind or
• 1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon or
• 1/3 teaspoon of ground ginger

To make Koeksisters, It is best to make the syrup first and and then leave it in the fridge overnight.

Make the Koeksister Syrip
Very easy, just add the dry ingredients to the water and bring the mixture to the boil. Allow it to simmer for about 10 minutes or until it starts to turn syrupy. Set it aside allow to cool and then place in the fridge overnight.

Make the Koeksister Batter
First sift the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl (flour, baking powder and salt). Then cut or rub the margarine or butter into them, similar to making pastry.

Add the milk to the beaten egg and then add this to your flour mixture and again like pastry it is important to handle as little as possible. Then place this koeksister dough in the fridge for at least an hour.

Roll the cold dough to a thickness of about ¼ of an inch and cut into strips that are approximately 3 and a half inches long and about 1 inch wide. Then cut each of your strips into three lengthways, leaving one side uncut at the end, and plait the pieces, pressing the cut ends firmly together at the end. (hope this bit makes sense, but basically just imagine you are plaiting hair and you will get the idea.)

Fry Koeksister dough
Heat the vegetable oil in a deep pan and remove half of the syrup from the fridge and deep-fry the koeksisters in the oil until they turn golden brown. Drain them on absorbent paper.

Then dip the koeksisters into the cold syrup, for a few seconds it is important to do this whilst they are still hot to get the right texture as this will seal the syrup outside and leave the inside of the koeksister dry in contrast.

As you follow this process with more koeksisters, the syrup will gradually become warmer, so when about half way through the koeksisters use the second batch of syrip that you have in the fridge.

Thats it, hope you enjoy your koeksisters and rugby

Check another South African sweet dish of Malva Pudding.

If you have any of your own food recipes that you would like to add, or would like to add anything else to Chirundu.com, please see more on >> Contributing Articles

I hope you enjoy your koeksisters, check back soon for some more of the African Food recipes!

Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Because the UK has such short and unpredictable summers, when the sun does shine, people really appreciate every second and so barbecues are very popular. I can’t think of a better way to enjoy a perfect summers day in England than with a group of friends enjoying good food on the bbq. Part of the good food is having tasty succulent meat so here are some of the best British barbecue sauce recipes.

You may be wondering what the best British barbecue sauce recipe is doing on a site about African food, well this recipe is part of a section on the best BBQ sauces from around the world, others include the best braai sauce recipe from South Africa, best barbecue sauce recipe from the USA, best BBQ sauce recipe from Australia and the best barbeque sauce recipe from Argentina, you can then try them out and let me know which you think is best! View all BBQ Sauce Recipes >>

Right, enough talk, here are the best British Barbecue Sauce Recipes:

British Barbecue Sauce Recipe

Spare Rib Barbecue Sauce
This barbecue sauce is really simple and takes less than half an hour to make and is perfect for coating / basting spare ribs and bland sausages. You can also use it as a dip.

Barbecue Sauce ingredients

• 3 crushed cloves of garlic
• 1 finely chopped small onion
• olive oil
• 1 finely chopped red chilli
• 1 teaspoon crushed fennel seeds
• 50ml dark soy sauce
• 300ml tomato sauce (ketchup)
• 55g dark brown sugar
• salt and pepper to taste

To Make the Barbecue Sauce:
Really simple, as all you need to do is fry off the onion and garlic in the olive oil adding the fennel seeds, chilly and sugar. You then add the soy sauce and tomato sauce and season with your salt and pepper. Let it come to the boil, reduce the heat to a simmer and leave for a few minutes for the flavours to mingle.

View all BBQ Sauce Recipes >>