Meat
Gatsby
A whole baguette packed with vinegar-soaked chips, meat and hot sauce, cut into six. Not a sandwich for one — a meal for half the street.
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15 recipes
Quick, after work
The fire needs its 40 minutes — that part you cannot shorten. Everything else you can: these recipes are done in under 45 minutes, with no marinating and no proving. Light the fire, then head to the kitchen.
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Meat
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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.
Meat · Rashers
Pork belly rashers
Thinly cut pork belly in a curry and honey marinade, crisp in twenty minutes over medium coals. The side that lies next to the wors on every South African grid.
Fish
Fish
Smoorsnoek
Done beforehand
Fish
Smoorsnoek
Smoked snoek flaked and braised with onion, tomato and potato, then folded through rice. A leftovers dish that beats the original.
Fish · Calamari op die kole
Calamari off the grid
Squid tubes and tentacles, an hour in garlic, chilli and lemon, then three minutes a side over full coals. Longer would be the mistake.
Fish · Snoek
Snoek with apricot glaze
Butterflied snoek in a hinged grid, basted with a glaze of apricot jam, garlic and butter. On the West Coast this is not a recipe idea, it is an institution.
Side
Side · Biltongslaai
Biltong salad
Rocket, avocado, feta and mango with thinly sliced biltong and a honey-mustard vinaigrette. Ten minutes of work, and the biltong comes ready-sliced out of the packet.
Side · Chakalaka-pastaslaai
Chakalaka pasta salad
Fusilli with chakalaka, baked beans and a spoon of mayonnaise. Four ingredients, ten minutes' work — and the hottest salad on the table.
Side · Driebone slaai
Three bean salad
Green beans, butter beans and kidney beans in a sweet-sour dressing, best made the day before. The salad on every bring-and-braai table.
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.
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.
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.
Sweet
Peppermint Crisp-tert
Right at the end
Sweet · Peppermint Crisp-tert
Peppermint Crisp tart
Caramel, cream and crushed mint chocolate between coconut biscuits, left in the fridge overnight. No oven, no fire, twenty minutes of work — and the pudding every South African child recognises.