Jan Braai’s lekker braai

What is needed:

1kg Deboned Lamb Rib

2 Lemons

30ml salt

30ml pepper

1 red onion

Small tub of feta

1 pack of sun dried tomatoes

30ml capers

Butchers string

0.5 cup of white wine

0.5 cup of lamb / mutton stock

Clamp / hinged grill

Now kids, the reason you follow a recipe is because it gives you a set of instructions to succeed at dish that is new to you.

We did not read the recipe and things started going south almost immediately.

I really struggled to get my hands on some deboned lamb ribs. Apparently, it is not something widely available. Finally the good people at Pick and Pay Southdowns were willing to debone some lamb ribs for me.

Now, if you read Jan Braai’s recipe, the very first instruction is – phone the butcher and order deboned lamb ribs. So from step two onwards I read more carefully.

You start by laying out the lamb rib seasoning the lamb rib with salt, pepper and lemon juice to taste.

Then you spread the sun dried tomatoes, capers, feta and onions as evenly as possible on the rib.

The cut I got was a bit thick and it was hard to roll so I had to trim some of the meat in order to make a better roll. (Maybe an Amsterdam rolling professional could help here?)

Ensuring the filling stays nice and firm, roll the lamb rib into a tube and tie securely with some butcher’s rope. Butcher’s rope was another item I couldn’t easily find, luckily, the kind people from the PnP butchery saved me again here. They were kind enough to give me some when I asked nicely!

Now place the lamb in a potjie (pot) for a 90 minutes. (Another surprise since I apparently did not read the recipe thoroughly). Now, I had to explain to the head chef why we will behind with 90 minutes. So kids, if you want to avoid the head chef rolling her eyes at you – read the recipe before starting.

So now, quickly get your potjie ready put in white wine and lamb stock. 90 minutes or so in a potjie will make the lamb meat very soft but keep it juicy.

After 90 minutes, remove the lamb and cut it into nice equal size pieces. Since the lamb slices can be hard to handle it helps if you place them in a hinged grill.

On hot coals braai the lamb slices until they are a nice golden brown and the fat is nice and crispy. It would take +- 10 minus to complete.

For a side dish, these barbequed sweet potatoes in a cilantro vinaigrette comes highly, highly recommended.

The result? A soft succulent lamb paired with the smoky sweet potatoes. It is an absolute winner.

Lessons learned for the day? Read the recipe through at least once before starting. Even it is just a quick look see. It will help you to avoid surprises later on the recipe. And, if you told your wife – “yeah sure, I read the thing, now leave me alone,” then you absolutely have to read the damn thing.

Recipe is from the book Jan Braai Shisanyama. 

Mantou and Singapore Chilli Crab

And… we are back with a new blog entry. After the birth of our daughter we took a small hiatus (four years) but we are back!

At the start of every year my wife travels to Singapore for business meetings at their headquarters and it is company tradition – first night in Singapore it is Chilli Crab for dinner. This year she brought a kit back from Singapore and on Saturday night for the first time ever I got to experience Chilli Crab.

Well… not Chilli Crab. The recipe calls for a 1.2 kilogram live Sri Lanka crab, and around these parts, Sri Lanka crab (crab in general) is hard to find. So instead of crab we settled on prawns for a number of reasons. Biggest reasons – I do not have to kill a gigantic pissed off crab.

To accompany the Chilli Prawns we made Mantou. Also known as Chinese steamed buns, they are sweet, light and fluffy. Perfect for soaking up the chilli sauce.

Cleaning the prawns and getting them ready for the chilli sauce

Making the chilli sauce is easy since the kit provides you with everything you need - You can get this kit only in Singapore or Australia - darn, sorry fellow South Africans :( .

The tricky part is getting the Mantou perfect.....

To make the buns you need:

·         300 g all- purpose flour.

·         2 tablespoons sugar.

·         1.5 teaspoon instant yeast.

·         150 ml water.

·         Pinch of salt.

To get started with the buns, heat some water to +- 35 degrees and then melt the sugar in the water and mix in the yeast. Let the concoction stand for five minutes. 

During the waiting period you will see foam on the water. It is carbon dioxide being released as the yeast feeds on the sugar.

Next, the flour. Since we do not have all-purpose flour we took cake flour and added two extra tablespoons (more info on substituting all-purpose flour with cake flour).

Put the salt and flour in a bowl and then slowly add the water / yeast mixture. Stir the mixture while you slowly add the water.

Knead the dough until it is a nice soft and smooth consistency.

Now let the dough rest until it has doubled twice in size (more or less an hour). To see if the dough is ready, lightly touch the side of the dough. If your fingertip indentation remains, the dough is ready. For more information on testing the dough, see this post from Red Star Yeast.

Keep dusting the dough and knead the dough again until it is smooth. All the air must be punched out of the dough to ensure the dough is as smooth as possible, I repeat ALL OF THE AIR must be punched out, this might even be therapeutic if you are angry. Once again Red Star Yeast has a good post on this.

Helping mommy and daddy

Now roll the dough in a log and cut log in slices about 2 centimeters wide.

Using a steamer, steam the dough slices until they become fluffy which takes around 5 minutes in a microwave. Note to self: Don't wait until the day you want to make these buns to find a bamboo steamer, because Murphy will make sure that you won't find a bamboo steamer in any store in Centurion. So we used a plastic steamer, next time I will rather plan ahead and get us the bamboo steamer. 

For a final optional steps, you can deep fry the buns until they are nice and golden on the outside.

Now for the last step - eat the chilli prawns! Soak up the sauce with those delicious fried buns!

What a fantastic way for me to finally share some Singapore culture with my wife. Maybe someday I will be blessed enough to experience the real thing...