There's a saying doing its rounds in South Africa stating:, "Wat is 'n vrou wat kan braai? Sy is kwaad" resulting from the typical behaviour of men at a South African braai who are drinking a lot of beer and just keeps on adding wood to the fire. I would like to rectify this, "Wat is 'n vrou wat kan braai? Sy is 'n Vrystater"
Born and bred in the Free State with all the cattle and sheep farms surrounding us, we have a special love for meat. You can keep your "Meat free Mondays" or "Meat free May", thank you very much!
Winter is approaching and with the cooler weather we love to make our Bloemfontein Oxail Potjie.
The first time we made this potjie was about 12 years ago, in the middle of the winter in a very cold Bloemfontein. We drank alot of red wine and the pot were only ready at 11pm that evening. We froze our butts off in the cold Free Sate air that night, but we were younger and more interested in drinking wine.
Clearly from the pictures you can see, it was a party and only the wine mattered......
Now at almost 40 I must say, I am too old for that shit. So we start our oxtail pot really early so that it can be ready by 6pm. The wine still matters but we're unfortanetly to old to party -"like it's 1999" - because a hangover now lasts a week.
So here you go, the recipe for the Bloemfontein Oxtail potjie..... You're welcome ;)
1. Take fresh beef oxtail, (the quantity depends on the size of potjie that you are making, we usually use 12 oxtail pieces for our Size 3 potjie) dunk it in some flour and brown it on the stove in olive oil whilst you are frying celery, carrots, onion and garlic in your potjie.
2. Remove the celery mix and add your oxtails to the potjie and brown it in the potjie for another 5 minutes. Return the celery mix, add 2 cups of lamb stock and a cup of red wine, (and please don't use shitty red wine in food, if you won't drink it, we also don't want to eat it), simmer this for about 4 hours on a constant medium heat.
3. After four hours and copious amounts of red wine (well, copious is a relative description depending on your age, HA HA), add a packet of rich oxtail soup and a cup of coca-cola. Simmer for another 3 hours. In the last hour add baby potatoes (halved) and simmer for the last hour.
4. Serve with rice and some spring onion as garnish and ENJOY!
Jy gaan jou vingers af lek - you can thank me later ;)
