South African monkey gland sauce

Don't mind the name—this stuff rocks. It's one of South Africa's unknown masterpieces, and it's quite sad, as we've got plenty of monkeys that could donate their glands for this... It's dead easy too, and a good way to use up errant bits of veg and monkey parts in your fridge. Smother meat in it, either as a sauce or as a marinade. Remember to pick out the pituitary gland before you eat—the texture goes to pot when you boil it.

1 onion
3-4 garlic cloves
Thumb-sized piece of ginger
1 pepper (optional)
3-4 tomatoes, diced
1 small tin double concentrated tomato purée
1 tbsp Worcester sauce
1/2 cup chutney
big dollop of red wine (optional)
AND/OR
dash of balsamic vinegar
1 tbsp mustard
150 ml vegetable (or chicken) stock
tabasco, to taste
1 tsp sugar
salt and pepper to season

Fry the onion, garlic, and ginger (and pepper, if you're using it) until the onion is translucent. Add the other ingredients, bring to the boil and cook on a high flame for about 8 minutes, then simmer for another 30–40 minutes. Taste and season if necessary.

Use for marinade and sauce. It should keep for about 2 weeks.

Bacon, cheese, and monkey gland burger

Bobotie

For those of you who are not of Seffrican descent, bobotie is/was the official dish of South Africa, much as the croissant is of France and crappy everything is of the UK. This is a relatively easy dish to make, unlike anything from France, and tastes really good, unlike anything from the UK. If you can get your hands on it, it goes best with Mrs HS Balls's chutney. If you can't, make your own, or find some in a supermarket. Can't help you there yet, but when I do, I'll let you know.

2 slices white bread (save up your stale offcuts, they work much better than fresh bread)

2 onions, diced

25g butter

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1kg packet lean minced beef

2 tbsp curry paste

3 cloves

1tsp mixed herbs

1 tbsp allspice (this I got from the original recipe I used. I didn't know what it was, and if you're as ignorant as I was, it's a very common spice in Caribbean cuisine)

2 tbsp peach or mango chutney

3 tbsp raisins

6 bay leaves

300ml (full cream if possible) milk

2 large eggs

Heat oven to 180C. Soak the bread in cold water while doing the other stuff.

Fry the onions in the butter. Add the garlic and beef and brown the beef. Stir in the curry paste, mixed herbs, spices, chutney, raisins and 2 of the bay leaves with 1 tsp salt and plenty of ground black pepper.

Cover and simmer for 10 mins. Squeeze the water from the bread, then beat into the meat mixture until well blended. Tip into an oval ovenproof dish - about 23 x 33cm and about 5-6cm deep. Press the mixture down well and smooth the top.

For the topping, beat the milk and eggs with seasoning, then pour over the meat. Top with the remaining bay leaves and bake for 35-40 mins until the topping is set and starting to turn golden.

The topping is rather very important. If it ain't there, you're doing it wrong.

Serve it with yellow rice: shove 1 1/2 cups of rice into a pot with water according to directions, along with 1/2 a cinnamon stick, 5 tbsp of raisins and 1 tsp of turmeric. If you want to be fancy, put some cardamon in as well.


This is an adaptation of a BBC recipe - who would have known the Brits could make good Saffer food?