South Africa

Menu: Boerewors, chakalaka (bean salad), stywe pap (stiff cornmeal), and malva pudding | Recipe Source: africanbites.com, lifewithclottedcream.com, Melissa Mayo, and food.com

Aside from having a Die Antwoord phase in my early twenties and reading The Power of One in high school, I haven’t had much exposure to South African culture at all. Luckily enough, Anthony and I do have a friend who was born there, and he and his mom were able to send a few menu ideas my way. And that’s by far my favorite part of this project: pulling countries that my friends, family members, or coworkers have a connection to. Whether it’s the place where they grew up, somewhere they studied abroad, their grandparents’ homeland, or a destination they’ve traveled to extensively, getting to ask a real, live person about their favorite foods from a country that holds a special place in their heart is always so special (it also saves me from having to spend an hour hunting around for recipes on Google, but that is neither here nor there).

Thoughts: I want to talk about the entire meal but I can’t get past the malva pudding. In complete and utter seriousness, it’s one of my favorite desserts that I’ve ever tried and from this moment forward, if I’m ever tasked with bringing dessert to a party or a holiday, I’ll be making this. It was somehow syrupy and light at the same time, and despite how thoroughly the cake was soaked in the cream and sugar mixture, it didn’t get gross and soggy. My second favorite part of the meal was the chakalaka bean salad- it turns out that loading your baked beans up with vegetables is not only delicious, but also makes them feel more like a true, savory side dish and less like weird bean sugar dessert masquerading as a dinner food (and I say that not as a hater of American baked beans, but as a girl with a summer birthday* who could kill a can of maple bacon Bush’s in a single sitting). The spicing in the boerewors sausage was phenomenal (I honestly can’t pinpoint what they put in them, but it is GOOD) and they paired super well with the tangy-sweet gravy. The only slight disappointment was the stywe pap, but that’s just down the personal preference. They tasted like a grittier version of mashed potatoes, and that texture kept throwing me off.

*This is a gigantic tangent but being a Midwesterner with a July birthday means that growing up, I always had a cookout to celebrate, and because of that, for better or worse, all warm-weather grilling foods (ribs, potato salad, baked beans, brats) feel like they’re deeply entrenched in my personality lol

Ready to cook?

Boerewors: I picked these up from a specialty butcher shop near us and grilled them as if they were brats (shot for a 165°F internal temp).

Gravy (link): I skipped the tomatoes, only used 1/4 of a diced onion, and cut the 1 cup of water to 1/3 cup because I wanted a thicker gravy, but otherwise followed this recipe closely. I also couldn’t tell if “coriander” meant ground coriander seed or fresh cilantro, and I used the fresh herb!

Chakalaka (link): I followed this recipe exactly aside from adding a little garlic powder.

Stywe Pap (link): I ended up adding double the amount of water that they called for because my mixture was WAY too thick, but I think that was user-error (trying to convert ml to grams).

Malva Pudding (link): I followed this recipe exactly.