Meat · Murgbene
Marrow bones
Beef marrow bones split lengthways over hot coals until the marrow bubbles, with parsley salsa and toasted bread. Twenty minutes for the richest starter a fire can produce.
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16 recipes
Your first braai
You have rented a house, there is a built braai outside, and nobody explained how it works. These are the recipes that need nothing but a grid, no lead time, and no ingredient you have to go hunting for. Start with the fire — the rest is easier than it looks.
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Meat
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When to start
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Effort
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Meat
Meat · T-bone tjop
T-bone with braai salt
A thick T-bone over full coals, seasoned with home-mixed braai salt of toasted coriander, salt and paprika. Two seconds on the hand test — this is searing, not cooking.
Meat · Karoo-tjops
Karoo lamb chops
Thick lamb chops with rosemary, garlic and lemon, started on their fat edge and done over hot coals in ten minutes. Karoo lambs graze on aromatic semi-desert scrub, which is why this meat needs almost no seasoning.
Sausage
Sausage
Boerewors
The sausage without which there is no braai. You buy it ready-made — the whole skill is in the fire, and it consists of not making it too hot.
Side
Side
Chakalaka
A hot vegetable relish with curry, carrot, peppers and baked beans in tomato sauce. Eaten warm, at room temperature or cold, and served next to the pap rather than on the grid.
Side · Pap
Pap — stywe pap and krummelpap
White maize meal, water and salt, and nothing else. Change the ratio and you get either a block you can slice or a crumbly heap — the two sides that go with everything off the fire.
Side · Halloumi op die kole
Braai halloumi with fynbos honey
Thick slices of halloumi over hot coals, then dressed with honey, lemon and chilli. Eight minutes from packet to plate — the fastest thing at the fire.
Side · Gevulde sampioene
Stuffed braai mushrooms
Large brown mushrooms filled with feta, garlic and thyme, in foil over medium coals. The one vegetarian item that does not look like an apology next to a steak.
Side · Mielies
Mielies off the fire
Corn cobs, first cooked in foil and then charred open over the coals, with herb or curry butter. Foil first, then straight onto the coals: that is what makes it soft inside and dark outside.
Side · Soetpatats
Sweet potatoes out of the coals
Whole sweet potatoes in foil, 45 minutes beside the coals, then torn open and filled with rosemary butter or cinnamon sugar. They cook themselves while everything else wants attention.
Bread
Bread
Braaibroodjies
Toasted sandwiches with cheese, tomato, onion and fruit chutney, cooked in a hinged grid over the last of the coals. Reckon on two per person — there is never one left over.
Bread
Roosterkoek
Yeast dough rolls baked not in an oven but straight on the grid over the last of the coals. Crusty outside, soft inside, and at a push the only side dish you need.
Sauce
Sauce
Monkey Gland Sauce
Done beforehand
Sauce · Monkey Gland Sauce
Monkey gland sauce
A dark, sweet-and-sour steak sauce of chutney, tomato sauce, Worcestershire and onion. On South African menus since the 1930s — and, to get it out of the way, containing no monkey glands whatsoever.
Sauce
Sheba
A slowly reduced tomato and onion sauce that belongs to pap the way butter belongs to bread. An hour on a low flame is all it needs — but it really does need that.
Sweet
Sweet · Braaibanane
Braai bananas
Bananas in their skins, split lengthways and filled with chocolate, twelve minutes in the last of the coals. They cook in the last of the coals while the table is being cleared.
Snack
Snack
Braaipastei
Medium
Snack · Braaipastei
Braai pie
Puff pastry filled with wors, cheese and chakalaka, baked golden in a hinged grid over medium coals. Proof that pastry belongs at a fire.