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 >>

Making Boerewors can be fun and is actually not that difficult, it just take a little time. This way you know exactly what is going into your sausage and the best thing is, with experience you can experiment with the basic recipe to make the perfect “boere” just for you.

The Traditional Boerewors Recipe

What equipment you need
Apart from the ingredients (see below), you are going to need a meat mincer (grinder), look for one that comes with a sausage-stuffing attachment as well. Otherwise you will also have to get a specialist sausage stuffer.

There are many available on the web (take a look at the links to Amazon below), look for the traditional cast iron meat mincers that have a metal casing as they are much better quality. Most also come with about 3 different sizes of grinding plates. To make boerewors, I use a fairly large grinding plate (quarter inch or about 6 mm). This is because you don’t want to grind the meat too finely. Mine also came with two different sized plastic sausage-stuffing attachments, again I use the larger one to stop the meat getting too squashed.

Cast Iron Meat Mincers/Grinders on Amazon:

Other than the mincer, all you need for homemade boerewors are a few large containers for holding the meat, mince and then to put the sausage into as you push it through your mincer.

Boerewors Ingredients

To make traditional South African boerewors you will need:

• 2 kg (4.4 lb) prime Beef
• 1 kg (2.2 lb) Pork
• 20 g (50 ml or 10 tsp) Coriander
• 2 ml (½ tsp) ground Cloves
• 2 ml (½ tsp) ground Nutmeg
• 30 g (25 ml or 5 tsp) fine Salt
• 5 ml (1 tsp) freshly ground Black Pepper
• 500 g (±1 lb) Bacon
• 100 ml Vinegar
• Casing (Pork casing is good)

As you can see this boerewors recipe uses both beef and pork. I just tend to use what looks good in the butchers and what is on deal, but have read that some people use trimmed brisket for the beef as it is cheap cut and contains quite a lot of fat, so you don’t have to add extra (Often Spek is added- see alternative boerewors recipe below). Don’t get untrimmed brisket as it is too fatty.

For the pork, just look for any fairly lean, but good quality pork that you can find.

Alternative Boerewors Recipe
I also recently found a boerewors recipe with slightly different ingredients (see below), but I haven’t tried it yet:

• 1 kg beef.
• 1 kg veal or lean pork.
• 1 kg mutton.
• 500 gr spek (firm pork fat from under the skin).
• 25 ml salt.
• 5 ml ground black pepper.
• 15 ml corriander
• 1 ml ground cloves.
• 2 ml nutmeg powder.
• 125 ml brown vinegar.
• 25 ml brandy (optional).
• 25 ml masala (optional).
• 200 gr wide sausage casings.

Method

To make the boerewors, a good tip is to prepare the casings first and by the time you have minced and seasoned the meat, they will be ready.

To do this, you will first need to wash the salt off the sausage casings (if you have used natural salt cured ones) this is best done by just rinsing them under a tap with warm water, but never hot water. Then place them in a bowl of warm water for at least one hour, or even overnight.

Prepare the Meat
Cut the all the meat and spek (if used) into about 1inch (25mm) cubes, and just let it stand for a while to allow excess blood to drain.

Spices
At the same time place the corriander in a dry frying pan and alow to cook until it browns and then break up the seeds.

Place all the meat and dry spices in a bowl and add the vinegar (and brandy if used) and lightly mix together and then leave to marinade in a fridge for a few hours. Cold meat is also easier to mince.

Mincing
Then mince (grind) the mixture using a meat mincer. It is important not to mince it too fine – use the cutter that has ±¼ inch holes (approx 6mm) (quarter inch plate).

Testing
At this point I like to test the seasoning of your meat mixture. All I do is take a little meat, make a small patty and fry it off in the frying pan. This way, you can add a little more spices if you think that the flavour is not strong enough yet.

Filling the Casing
Now for the scary/fun bit! – First remove the cutting blade and grinding plate from the grinder and fit the sausage-stuffing attachment. Then pull one length of casing over the attachment, if it is difficult, try wetting the attachment with a little water. You can also try blowing into the casing to remove any kinks helping it to slide over easier.

To fill the casing, I have found that this is a little easier if you have someone to help you. One person can feed the ground meat into the stuffer, and the other can then turn the wheel and control the speed with which the casing comes off the attachment.

Having learnt through experience, it is important not to over-stuff the casing as it will cause it to burst on the mincer and even in the freezer or when on the braai, thus loosing a lot of the flavour.

Patience
My butcher then advised me to let the boerewors hang for a while, which I do. This just removes extra liquid that could also cause the boerewors to split in the freezer or on the braai.

Thats it, now go and light the braai and open up a beer if you haven’t already as you will soon be enjoying your very own home made traditional boerewors!

Traditional Cast Iron Mincers on Amazon

Where to Buy Boerewors

If home-made boerewors looks like a little too much effort, you could always buy some, although as I said, you can never be sure that you are going to get the taste or quality that you expect.

Obviously if you live almost anywhere in Southern Africa getting hold of boerewors is not a problem. If however you live in other parts of the world finding it can be a little more difficult. In the UK more and more butcheries are now making it.

Buy Boerewors on Amazon!
If however you do not have access to a local butchery that makes boerewors, you can now buy it online on Amazon both here in the UK and in the US:

Boerewors for Sale On-Line

As with pretty much everything these days you can now buy your favourite braai meat online both here in the UK and in the US:

UK
Boerewors on Amazon.co.uk

USA

Boerewors on Amazon.com

Further Reading

Braai Recipes | BBQ Recipes

The southern African Braai (barbeque) is more than just eating food cooked on a grill outside. In South Africa, Zimbabwe and many other places in Africa it is a way to get together with friends and enjoy good food, good weather and a few cold beers.

These are some of the best braai recipes that we have collected and used over the years. and I hope you enjoy them, If you have any recipes that you would like to add a recipe,  please feel free to contact me.

All you need for the perfect rugby braai

Braai Equipment

• The Best Braai

Main Courses on the Braai

• Make your own Boerewors
• Barbecue Ribs Recipes
• Sosaties Recipe
• Barbecue Beer Can Chicken Recipe

Side Dishes

• Mielie Pap and Sadza Recipes

Sauces and Relishes

• Chakalaka
• South African Braai Sauce Recipe
• BBQ Sauce Recipe from Australia
• Chimichurri: Argentina Barbeque Sauce Recipe
• English Barbecue Sauce Recipe

View all Braai Recipes >>

Buy Boerewors on Amazon!
If you do not have access to a local butchery that makes boerewors, you can now buy it online on Amazon both here in the UK and in the US:

Boerewors for Sale On-Line

As with pretty much everything these days you can now buy your favourite braai meat online both here in the UK and in the US:

UK
Boerewors on Amazon.co.uk

USA

Boerewors on Amazon.com

The Best Malva Pudding Recipe

Malva Pudding is a classic South African Food dish, that origionally comes from the Dutch, it is a sweet pudding, which is usually served hot with sauce, custard or ice-cream and you will often find it on the dessert menu in many South African restaurants.

Malva Pudding is made with apricot jam and has a spongy caramelized texture. The name “Malva” comes from Malvacea wine from Madeira. The dessert and desert wine used to be served together after main course at Cape tables. There are many variants of Malva pudding like the Cape Brandy Pudding which also include brandy and dates and the Tipsy Tart which contains only brandy.

Malva Pudding Recipe

Malva Pudding Ingredients, To make traditional South African Malva pudding you will need:

• 1 cup of milk
• 1 cup of (light) brown sugar
• 3 teaspoons of apricot jam
• 1 teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda
• 1 teaspoon of vinegar
• 1 cup of plain white flour
• 1 egg
• 4 teaspoons of butter

Malva Pudding Sauce

• 1 cup whipping cream (not whipped)
• 6 ounces butter
• 1 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup hot water

To make Malva Pudding, first beat the egg and brown sugar together untill the mixture is thick and light, then stir in the apricot jam.

Sift the flour and bicarbonate of soda together.

Melt butter and vinegar together and then addthe milk.

Add the sifted dry ingredients to egg mixture alternating with milk mixture.

Pour batter into greased oven-proof dish. Bake at 180 C for about 30 minutes, or until lightly browned.

For the Sauce:
Melt together the ingredients for the sauce and pour over the pudding as it comes out of the oven.

UK – Southern Africa Cookbooks on Amazon.co.uk

USA – Southern Africa Cookbooks on Amazon.com

Chakalaka is a spicy African vegetable relish traditionally served with bread, sadza (pap), samp, stews or curries and origionally comes from the townships of Johannesburg.

Chakalaka Ingredients:

• 45 ml oil
• 1 onion
• 2 garlic cloves grated
• 1 green pepper (crushed)
• 3 green chillies deseeded and finely chopped
• 10 ml curry powder
• 3 medium carrots, grated
• 1 medium cauliflower or broccoli, divided into florets
• Can of baked beans in tomato sauce
• Salt and pepper to taste

Method:
Heat oil and sauté onions, garlic, ginger and green pepper with the chillies and curry powder for five minutes. Add carrots and cauliflower. Cook gently for about 15 minutes, or until all vegetables are cooked. Add beans and seasoning, heat through and allow to cool. Serve cold.