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You are here: Home / London Life / A South African lunch in London

A South African lunch in London

by Jeanne Horak on November 30, 2004 10 Comments in London Life

As I mentioned in a previous post, a couple of weeks ago I hosted a lunch at home as a kind of reunion of our fellow-Beerfest attendees.  Out group were pretty varied in nationality – Australian, New Zealand, Mexican and (of course!) South African – so we decided it might be fun to invite each other over to try our respective cuisines.  Seeing as I can’t help myself, I volunteered to be first which meant that it turned into the “South African Traditional Beerfest Reunion Lunch 2004” – quite a mouthful!  I had the usual week or two agonising about the menu.  As I have said before, it is tricky to make the stuff you’d make at home, purely because the ingredients are hard to come by over here.  A smoked snoek pate is a bit tricky when there’s no smoked snoek available, and clearly Tesco does not carry a kudu leg roast.  The other consideration was the amount of work involved for me – there were to be five guests plus Nick and I, so I was looking at catering for 7 in my minuscule and woefully under-equipped kitchen.  In summer this would be a lot easier – we do a braai (BBQ) and everyone is happy (especially me, as Nick does most of the cooking and there are almost no pots and pans to wash!).  But in winter, whatever we eat has to come out of the kitchen and there was no way I was frying multiple coils of boerewors in my one frying pan or making fiddly individual starters.  So my choice of menu was informed by a) lack of South African raw ingredients; b) ease of preparation and c) genuine South Africannness.

The menu that I came up with was a mix of the traditional and the slightly off-beat – I mean, I very much doubt that the Voortrekkers were dining on avocado soup – but the overall meal was very much South African.  I also laid the table using my beaded Zulu coasters and serviette rings to add another touch of home.  The menu was duly typed and by the time the guests arrived, there were copies lying on the table for their perusal both in English and Afrikaans – let me tell you what the menu was before I go into detail:

ENGLISH

Pre-lunch drink – Brandy and Coke (a.k.a. “police coffee” or “karate water”)

Starter – Warm avocado soup with biltong

Main course – Bobotie with yellow rice and cinnamon butternut

Dessert – Cape brandy pudding

AFRIKAANS

Drankie voor middagete – Brandewyn en Coke (o.b.a. polisiekoffie of karatewater)

Voorgereg – Warm avokadosop met biltong

Hoofgereg – Bobotie met geelrys en botterskorsie met kaneel

Nagereg – Dadelpoeding (of tipsy tert)

OK, some explanations.  Brandy and Coke is something of a national institution among a certain stratum (and age group!) of the South African population.  I mean, I would rather die of dehydration than order a brandy and Coke in a bar, but my father has had a brandy and before dinner Coke every Saturday night since I can remember.  So in that sense it’s a generational thing.  But later I dated somebody who hung out with a lot of policemen and I swear that off duty, this was their favourite combination.  Talk about living up to the cliché.  Anyway, it is probably the most quintessentially South African combination you will find – in fact, in South Africa you usually drink a particular type of brandy with your Coke, and that’s Klipdrift.  So if you should ever find yourself in a South African bar and want to blend in with the locals, just ask for a “Klippies and Coke”!

 

Avocado soup

 

As for the rest of the meal, the avocado and biltong soup is one of my all-time favourite recipes – dead easy and always impressive because people labour under the misapprehension that avocado soup has to be chilled, and this one isn’t.  I learnt this recipe from my good friend Peter and I always think of it as Peter’s avocado soup – and I think it deserves a post of its own, so recipe will follow in the next post.  The main course, bobotie, is an old favourite of mine and something on which I’ve posted on previously.  Suffice to say herethat it is a traditional Cape dish heavily influenced by the Malay slaves who were brought to the Cape by Dutch settlers, and consists mainly of curried mince baked under an egg custard decorated with bay leaves.

 

South African bobotie

 

The butternut was peeled, seeded, chopped, steamed and mashed with a little sugar and a lot of cinnamon and the rice was boiled with half a teaspoon of turmeric and a handful of sultanas.  Pretty much all of the main course showcased the South African love of mixing sweet tastes with savoury, both in the liberal use of sultanas in the meat and rice and in the cinnamon-sugar butternut – in fact, my father refuses to nibble on any kind of squash or pumpkin unless it has been liberally doused with butter and cinnamon sugar! What interested me most about the meal was the reaction of our two Mexican friends.  Now you wouldn’t think that there would be much commonality between the cuisine of Mexico and South Africa… think again.  They were interested in the avocado soup as they eat a lot of avocados (think guacamole!).  They were intrigued by the spiced mince dish as there is plenty of spiced mince in Mexican cuisine.  But the oddest coincidence was the drink – they were amazed that we were serving brandy and coke because (according to them) it is practically a national institution in Mexico!  Just goes to show – nothing new under the sun!

 

Cape brandy pudding © J Horak-Druiff 2010

 

The Cape brandy pudding (also known as tipsy tart, despite bearing no resemblance to a tart!) is a dessert that I have often eaten but had never actually attempted to make it myself.  The recipe that I used is, as I recall, from my friend Paul (he of the butternut soup!) and I figured that as we already had brandy in the house for the pre-lunch drinks, this was as good as any a time to try my hand at it.  This is a baked pudding with dates and nuts which is soaked in a brandy-laced syrup after baking – what could possibly be wrong with that?? It turned out to be dead easy to make and was absolutely devoured by the guests – I have never seen such clean dessert dishes in my life! It’s a perfect warming winter dessert that you could easily serve as an alternative to traditional Christmas pudding – find my recipe for it here.

What would YOU cook if you had to make a 3-course meal for guests that epitomised your homeland? Please tell me in the comments 🙂

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  1. anthony says

    December 2, 2004 at 6:36 am

    Shurly brandy and dry at least. The cocktail of choice in my hometown is
    1 x 700ml bottle of bourbon/ whiskey
    1 x 2 litre bottle of coke
    Empty 700ml of coke from bottle and replace with whisky.
    “But later I dated somebody who hung out with a lot of policemen” hmmmm ; )

    Reply
  2. Jeanne says

    December 2, 2004 at 10:42 am

    Yup, we have that “cocktail” too. I’ve also tried the same trick with Whisky & water – an empty 2l Coke bottle, half whisky & half water. Interesting.
    Hmmm, yes, the policeman thing. Least said, soonest mended. Not a high point, romantically speaking. And not a very good period for cocktails either!!

    Reply
  3. anthony says

    December 2, 2004 at 2:48 pm

    “Whisky & water – an empty 2l Coke bottle, half whisky & half water”
    Ha you boozer. I’m impressed.

    Reply
  4. Jeanne says

    December 2, 2004 at 4:53 pm

    Not half as impressed as the guy who thought I was drinking 2l of neat J&B! Luckily he was too inebriated to enquire why I would want to decant J&B into a Coke bottle… What can I say – a misspent youth.

    Reply
  5. Joolez says

    December 17, 2004 at 5:17 pm

    Thank God, finally I know what “bay leaves” are. I had no clue (Lorbeerblätter in german). What are they in Afrikaans?

    Reply
  6. Jeanne says

    December 29, 2004 at 12:59 pm

    Joolez,
    Glad I put you out of your misery!! In Afrikaans they are quite similar to German – “lourierblare”.

    Reply
  7. michelle says

    January 4, 2009 at 5:01 pm

    impressed ! we have just done a series of recipes from the Cape and my fav is the bobotie, lekker with the borrie rice and sultanas, my kids enjoy this dish .

    Reply
  8. Biltong says

    August 28, 2010 at 10:48 am

    You mention Biltong on your list of foods. Biltong is great stuff, but if you are buying it or making it you need to make sure it’s good quality. Some really old recipies ask for “saltpetre” which has been shown to be bad for human health and should be avoided.

    Reply
  9. E H Wrigley says

    November 16, 2011 at 7:16 am

    Sounds delicious – I’m going to give it a try this weekend – as a family we love the Cumbrian dish Sticky Toffee Pudding in which the dates provide that lovely caramelly (sorry this that is a made up word!) flavour. Many of the ingredients are the same – so will be interested to see the similarities and differences with your South African version.
    Shame I didn’t know about this dish when we spent our two years in S.A. – would have looked out for it – my kids still love biltong or the US version of Beef Jerky which is easy to get hold of.

    Reply
  10. Carol Mance says

    June 20, 2017 at 7:16 pm

    I just love preparing your meals they are so easy, Thank You

    Reply
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Jeanne Horak is a freelance food and travel writer; recipe developer and photographer. South African by birth and Londoner by choice, Jeanne has been writing about food and travel on Cooksister since 2004. She is a popular speaker on food photography and writing has also contributed articles, recipes and photos to a number of online and print publications. Jeanne has also worked with a number of destination marketers to promote their city or region. Please get in touch to work with her Read More…

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