Roger's View of the World, Love and Seafood Gumbo!
Seize the Day! Put no trust in the morrow! — Horace
“Hoender Pastei” is South Africa’s Dutch-Malay’s version on the humble “Chicken Pot Pie!” Served along with Saffron rice and Mrs. Ball’s Chutney…. aaaah Paradise!
Since this was one of Laura’s family favorite dishes, we decided to incorporate some of the wonderful ideas Karen brought back from South Africa! Here’s our latest recipe for a fun dish! enjoy!
Roger Freberg
In South Africa, the humble Chicken Pot Pie has a Cape Dutch-Malay heritage… but variations are everywhere. Most of the recipes are wonderful … although … many eliminate the potato … which I cannot.
South Africans seem to spend great attention in the preparation their foods…. and in particular, their meats … which I admire. In that spirit, in preparation for the Chicken Pot Pie ‘assembly’, I smoked and barbecued my chicken, ham and bacon over some of my favorite woody flavors: Southern hickory, California red oak and Texas mesquite!
Tomorrow, I put it all together for our anniversary.
Stay tuned… Recipe to follow. Jenny Craig, forgive me.
Roger Freberg
Well… I have dropped 87 pounds on Jenny Craig! I feel great and I am into size 32 jeans which is very cool.
However, I have come to realize that I still want and NEED great food! Jenny’s food is wonderful… but I do think about food a lot anyway, so this gives me a chance to plan something special now and again. (Our 35th wedding anniversary is on the 12th of September)
I am particularly fond of the Cape Town favorite “Bobotie”. I bake it often. I am also researching a few other South African and Afrikaner dishes that have caught my attention, like “Smoorvis” (smoked fish and rice) and “Hoender Pastei” (chicken pie).
We are also looking at preparing a ‘Bobotie hamburger”– which will require tweaking the recipe a bit — topped with baked egg, onions and Mrs. Balls Chutney Sauce which sounds very special. It’s in the lab for further study!
Roger Freberg
Here’s our “Bobotie” recipe that contains a lot of traditional flavors (Leipoldt) as well as many of the current wonderful variations out there.
I have thoroughly enjoyed baking up some ‘Bobotie” since Karen turned me on to it!
One might describe the dish as a ‘casserole’… but that says more about the container than what goes inside it. My adventure to discover the history of Bobotie, where it came from, who helped shape and develop this interesting dish was quite a journey of exploration. I also had the opportunity to investigate what is ‘curry’ and discover how that helped ‘simplify’ the recipe but how it also changed it.
It is clear that the Dutch brought this initially popular ‘Italian’ recipe to Southern African in the 17 th century… or at least that’s the story. From here, it is clear that the British and the Cape Malay’s had a distinct influence on it’s evolution. Today, there are a wide variation in Bobotie recipes… but they are more similar than different. The recipe substituting Yogurt for the 1 cup milk was one of the more interesting to me.
If you search Bobotie, you will find ‘modern’ recipes from all over the world, emphasizing their own personal seasoning preferences. However, most of the recipes I found were British, German, South African and –of course– Dutch sites.
So, I robbed from everyone without regard to expense… and here’s my recipe… sweet and yummy.
Fortunately, it’s very good on my ‘healthy food’ meter and great when you have folks hanging around to test things out!
Roger Freberg
It’s tough living within a family of ‘super tasters’… everyone wants something new and interesting… I guess years of ‘Turduckens’ weren’t tasty enough? Now , the crowd is demanding a South African-style “Ostruducken.” I ‘assumed’ that an Ostruducken was put together much like any other bird within a bird recipe… you know… a chicken within a duck within a turkey … all stuffed into an Ostrich… however, it doesn’t work that way, since the Ostrich has very little breast meat…. but their legs are the size of a Buick! I went on the internet and found little help… Hormel is usually good… but not this time:
Similar to a turducken, this food is a combination of four meats, ostrich, turkey duck, and chicken that are layered together and rolled into a poultry roast. With the exception of the ostrich meat, turducken and osturducken are prepared in the same manner, starting by spreading a spicy seasoning over the meat, then placing a cornbread and sausage stuffing over the meat as they are layered together, and rolling the layers into the shape of a roast. Typically, the skin of each bird is kept on the meat if this is hand made, in order to add moisture and flavor to the combination of meats. Commercially produced osturducken often removes the skin and layers only the meats together.
So, have you ever cooked anything more than an Ostrich steak or burger? Frankly, I haven’t … and I was ready to build a giant smoker to handle this latest holiday challenge… but it isn’t imperative anymore…. Thanks to ‘Roger’ and the good folks at Blackwing Quality Meats … I have ordered what should be the right about of meat to cover my Turducken to transform it into an “Ostruducken.”
I still have a few loose ends… finding the right stuffing mixture to place between the Ostrich and the Turkey…. the right wine(s)…. but this is all the fun part.
I’ll post the final recipe after we do a little testing and let you know how it turned out!
Roger Freberg