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Snack

Droëwors

A thin sausage of beef and lamb with plenty of toasted coriander, air-dried rather than cooked. Boerewors's dried sister — and the snack in every South African car.

Droëwors is boerewors without a fire. It is made as dunwors, a thin sausage, because that dries fast enough not to spoil — the same logic as biltong, only in a casing.

Prep
1 hr 30 min
Drying
2 d
On the fire
—
Serves
10
Thin air-dried droëwors in a bowl
Popo le Chien · CC0

When it goes on

Right at the end

Pudding in the last of the heat — or something that needs no fire at all.

Equipment: nothing

This line

Khoikhoi and Sanbefore 1652Trekboers and Voortrekkers1652 to about 1900

Meat straight over the coals, drying as a way to keep it, game rather than slaughter stock.

Method

  1. Keep everything cold

    Meat, fat and grinder parts into the freezer for 30 minutes. It matters even more here than with boerewors — smeared fat dries unevenly.

  2. Toast the coriander

    Toast the seeds dry until strongly fragrant, then grind coarsely and sieve. In droëwors coriander is more than flavour: it also inhibits spoilage organisms.

  3. Grind and season

    Grind the meat coarsely, mix with all the spices, then add vinegar and Worcestershire and work for two minutes until the mixture binds.

  4. Rest

    Cover and refrigerate for two hours so the salt and spices distribute.

  5. Fill

    Fill the thin casing loosely and without air pockets. Leave it as one length or twist into 20 cm pieces.

  6. Hang it

    Hang at 20 to 24 °C and 40 to 60 percent humidity with steady air movement, nothing touching.

  7. Six to seven days

    Droëwors is done when it has lost at least 40 percent of its weight. It is then firm, bendable, and snaps with a dry crack. In a dehydrator on its lowest setting it takes two to three days.

Tips

  • No pork and no pork fat. Both go rancid on air-drying; beef and lamb do not.
  • Weighing is the only reliable test here too. 40 percent weight loss is the mark.
  • If a hard crust forms outside while the inside stays soft, the air is too dry. Slow the airflow rather than extending the time.

Droëwors and boerewors are the same recipe with two different endings. One goes over the coals, the other into the air — and the same spice mix produces two entirely different things.

The decisive difference is the fat. Boerewors needs pork belly, because it melts over the coals and keeps things juicy. Droëwors cannot take pork fat, because it oxidises as it dries and tastes rancid. Hence lamb — its fat is more stable and delivers the stronger flavour as well.

And the casing is thin. That is not a matter of style: in a thick casing the outside dries into an impermeable skin with a moist centre beneath it, and that centre spoils.

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Total time
40 min
Serves
6
Heat of the coals
medium
Equipment
Hinged grid