Food Safari

From the southern reaches of the dark continent comes a cuisine rich with

history and spices. Welcome to the revelation of South African food full of the

many influences of the rainbow nation.

Join our food safari to learn exactly what goes into Bill Tong. Cape Malay

Curry, the best urban street food, how to make delicious buvalti, discover the

secrets of a perfect bride, poicky-coast South Africa's one pot feast and a

sweet pudding to touch your heart.

South African food is the melting pot at the end of the rainbow nation. The

cultural divide has been crossed and everybody is now enjoying everybody else's

slaves. Graham Shapiro is a South African-born chef who trained in Ireland

worked across the world and owned an award-winning much-loved restaurant in

Cape Town before deciding to come to Australia to build a safer life for his

family. With his wife Robin he runs a cafe restaurant while poppy in

Fremantle, a place that pumps all day from breakfast through to dinner. You've got

all the sweetie goods which have been flavoured highly from Asia but come out of

the pots of Europe and we've got all the spices of Asia entering into all our

stewed sort of food so because stew is a European thing, curry's on Asian

thing, it really came together very easily. The most amount of Indians outside of

India are in South Africa. That combined with the Malay and Indonesian

influence that came to the Cape, you think of curry. We've got beboitis, we've got

the sort of Indian-Durban hot curries, we've got Cape Malay, more fragrant

curries so there are different spices you know you've got as it's labeled you've

got a madras curry which is clearly Indian related. This will be hotter than

something like a leaf masala which is something like this and this would be more

what you would use into a Cape Malay style curry or a bebooty. For sure if you go to

any South African's house and you open up their dry pantry area this should be

there and it shouldn't be full it'll probably be you know near the bottom.

Mrs. Balls is a mixed fruit chutney, it's a bit sweet, it's a bit tart, we have it

with all our curries so whenever we have curries and we have curries often we always

have a few things that are key on the table so it's like sliced bananas with coconut,

tomato, sambal and Mrs. Balls. I would say the biggest staple in South African

diet this would be this right here and that's maize meal we call it millimeal

and it's from a white corn. Oh it's very fine isn't it? Yeah it's got the

texture of salt and it's just really cooked with water as you stir it and work it

it absorbs and absorbs and it becomes quite stiff so you can relate that to

polenta in a lot of ways. We have samp, samp is a white corn that's dried and cracked.

What's that called? Well now this is cooked into a dish that's called umusho.

Umusho. So umusho is samp and beans together.

Now to an outsider, Bill Tong looks like a really not very yummy thing but for South

Africans I've insulted you. I'm not at all. All cultures have their preserved

meat and this is ours. It is a marinated salted dried beef or a

stretch or spring vodka or any other red meat. Bill Tong is something that we all

grow up teething on in South African I think it's a great way of of any child

getting its good dose of vaccination. So when do you eat Bill Tong?

When do you eat Bill Tong watching TV? I send the kids to school with some

Bill Tong if I ran low on fruits or something I just put some of that kind of snack in.

Watching rugby you wouldn't watch rugby without Bill Tong. That's against the rules.

And then you must know about burrow balls. Burrow balls being our

famous sausage of South Africa. So we have burrow balls for the bride and we've got

dried burrow balls. It's the same thing. It's dried just like built on. It's a lot

easier. Wow it just snaps.

Bill Tong has such a strong pull on the heartstrings of South Africans that

vegetarians have been known to return to meat because of it.

It's history dates back to the early days of white settlement when it was an

essential rather than indulgence. Your hand what does Bill Tong mean?

Well both of us are Dutch with pull is is the route from rum or a butter and

tongue actually means strip so it's the strip of the butter.

Your hand deploys one of five Bill Tong makers serving Perth's 80 strong South

African community. He was a university professor back home but with a change of

country came a change of career and the chance to share some of his

families techniques and recipes with a wide audience.

Every batch that I make I make with love and it's different from the previous one.

There's a few variables that you always have to take into consideration like the

weather, the heat, the dryness, the salt. It can all affect on the final product.

So we take a chunk of sliced meat and we season it.

What width that looks amazing spice mixture.

Most bolt-on spices will have salt, rock salt, pepper,

coriander and sugar in it. Then we put it in a combination of cider vinegar

and the traditional black or white vinegar and then after six or eight or 24 hours

depending on the taste that you want you just hang it up.

Six days later after we've hanged them. They're ready for eating now

and this is actually the final product and if we slice it

also that becomes this. This one we put it through a slice.

And this is what the final product is like. When you start eating it it's like

you're done to stop until it's finished.

The spice trade that was dominated by the Dutch East India Company left a huge

stamp on the cuisine of South Africa especially in the beautiful Cape Malay

curries that are unique and delicious. Well with the Cape Malay they were all

slaves and they worked for the Dutch and for the British and they used their

spices to boost their meals because the cuisine was so boring.

Hazel McBride's Cape Malay grandmother taught her all about cooking

and the joy of bringing family and friends together for regular curry feasts.

Wisdom Hazel collected into a book along with recipes from her friends.

She called it just like its leka translating from her favorite South African

phrase, crikey it's delicious.

Little bit of oil just to cover the bottom of the pot.

Fennel just a nice pinch human. When you smell the seeds your onion goes in.

So I'm on a high heat so you work fairly quickly. I do golden brown.

Just a teaspoon of garlic.

The chilli. It's a one big thigh. One teaspoon of coriander.

Just going to put a little bit of water just a couple of drops.

This is cumin. A little bit of fennel and garam masala.

turmeric and this is a hot masala. So I'm using three heat spines.

And this is a medium medium masala. Water.

All the spices are roasted in South Africa. The three tomatoes grated.

Now the tamarind a little bit of water just to separate it from the seeds.

Putting in about a teaspoon of salt and sugar. Now you've got to balance your sweet

and sour. And I'm using the raw sugar.

So now my curry leaves. In India they put it into the hot oil but you put it

into the sauce when it's good. I put it in a pan. So I'll just take off

you and I just bruise it in my hand.

Salt and pepper to the fish and I'm using rockling because it's a firm fish.

So fish is just packed in. What's the cooking time from here though?

Pretty quick. 10 minutes. 10 minutes. Yeah. I'll just spoon it over if you can get in.

So you're not actually turning the pieces over? No. So just gently

spawning it over. I'll come back in a few minutes.

And your coriander goes in just before you're about to serve.

Hazel serves her curry with fragrant turmeric rice and fresh tomato and

cucumber side dishes. Dressed with coriander and white vinegar.

It's heaven. And look at that fish. It's just perfect.

And I love that it's the working women's half hour recipe.

And that is really very very quick.

Street food in South Africa is full of dishes you'd never see anywhere else

or well known foods given a special twist. The best street food is from

Durban, city with the largest Indian population outside the subcontinent

and some inventive cooks who've created new dishes available only in the open air.

Our street food in Durban we have our being Indians in Africa.

We have our Samusas, we have our Bakoras, we have the Bunnychow.

Durban expatriate Durban Pile continues a great tradition from home

cooking Durban street food in a number of Sydney produce markets.

So is Durban Indian different from Indian Indian? Yeah it is. Things like

Samusas evolve differently. In India you won't find the corn, cheese and onion

and you won't find a lot of meat and that's actually lamb mince because Indians don't need beef.

The veggie we do with potatoes? That looks delicious.

And we also use some curry leaves there. Oh nice.

Shalots and coriander.

And I'm amazed seeing you doing it in mid air.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a neat trick. It is a neat trick.