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.
Monograph
Shisa nyama
Shisa nyama is isiZulu for burn the meat, and it names the public form of braai that grew out of township butcheries: you choose raw meat at the counter, have it weighed, and have it cooked over the coals. It is the most widespread way of braaing in the country.
Who is writing here
Nobody here is writing from a township. What is on this page comes from the sources linked below — two of them South African — and from watching as a guest, not from lived experience. The history of this form of braai is bound up with apartheid and forced removal; it is named here and not dressed up.
The word
Shisa is isiZulu for to burn or to make hot, nyama is meat. Together: burn the meat. The spelling moves around — shisa nyama, chisa nyama, chesa nyama, shisanyama — and it all means the same thing.
The word describes the form, not the dishes. What ends up on the plate is usually far older.
Where the form comes from
It grew out of a business problem. Township butchers wanted to move more meat over the weekend and started cooking it on the spot over coals and selling it ready to eat. The sales trick became a meeting place.
There is no founding year. The accounts agree on the starting point — butchery plus weekend — but give no date. They also agree on what came of it: places where people from every walk of life turn up.
How it works
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Choose at the counter
The meat lies out raw, the way it does at a butcher — because it is one. You pick by cut, not by dish.
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Weighed and paid
It is priced by weight. That is why a shisa nyama costs less than a restaurant serving the same amount of meat.
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Onto the grid
Either someone cooks it for you or you stand there yourself. Both are normal, and they cost differently.
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Sides with it
Pap and chakalaka are standard, not accessories. And something to drink.
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Eat it there
At long tables, often standing. Taking it away works, but it is not the idea.
Which cuts
Typically the fatty and the cheap: ribs, marrow bones, offal in caul fat, wors, chicken pieces. Not for want of better, but because fat is what works over open coals — it keeps the meat moist and it makes the smoke.
What rarely turns up at a garden braai is often the centre here. Skilpadjies and marrow bones are two of them.
Skilpadjies · Marrow bones · Netvet / caul fat
What it has to do with a braai in the garden — and what it does not
What they share is the fire and almost everything on it. The difference is the place: a braai is private and gets planned, a shisa nyama is public and simply happens. You do not arrange to meet there, you go there.
The second difference is who does what. At a braai the host makes the fire and everybody brings meat; at a shisa nyama the fire belongs to the house and everybody brings only themselves.
Music and the weekend belong to it — not as an extra, but as part of the thing.
Sources
- South African Tourism — Shisa nyama: the vibe, the food, the spiritSA
- Woolworths TASTE — What makes SA’s best shisa nyama?SA
- In Your Pocket — A South African Chisa Nyama
- Africtionary — Shisa Nyama
- Wikipedia — Umngqusho
Checked on 2026-09-05
Watch this
Linked, not embedded — opening this page contacts no outside server. The time marks jump straight to the moment.
6:11
English
J'Something
Pap 3 Ways // Made by J // Something's Cooking TV
Three consistencies from one ingredient, one after the other. Six minutes for what takes text three paragraphs.
- 0:59„Porridge“ — The soft version — breakfast pap, cooked loose.
- 2:02„Dry Pap“ — Stywe pap: firm enough to break off pieces. The version that belongs with a braai.
- 3:43„Breakfast Pap“ — The third route — one ingredient, three completely different results.
Last checked 2026-09-05
6:55
English
Wanna Cook
How to Cook Braai Pap | Wanna Cook
The one move where pap fails — adding the meal — shown large.
- 0:55„Add Starter“ — How the meal goes into boiling water without lumping.
- 1:47„Simmer“ — The time you leave the lid on. Stirring makes it worse, not better.
Last checked 2026-09-05
The dishes
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 · 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.
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.
Side
Umngqusho
Stamped maize and sugar beans, boiled for two hours until everything collapses into something creamy. One pot, two ingredients, and the whole table is fed.
Bread · Vetkoek met maalvleis
Vetkoek with curried mince
Yeast dough deep-fried until golden, split open and filled with mild curried mince. Crisp outside, airy inside — the street food every South African knows.
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.
Meat
Skilpadjies
Medium
Meat
Skilpadjies
Seasoned lamb's liver wrapped in caul fat and cooked crisp over medium coals. The name means little tortoises, and it describes exactly what ends up on the grid.
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.