How to make a good South African potjie
Cooking on a fire
Cooking on a fire is one of life’s greatest pleasures and it is within our South African culture to make a good potjie.
The conventional way to make a South African potjie is to add the meat, vegetables and the herbs and spices at the same time and leave them to stew for hours. I don’t like cooking a potjie that way as the flavour and textures then end up all being the same.
If you want to make a good South African potjie, you should cook the elements separately, as they all have a different cooking time or even heat requirement. So my preference is to separately cook the meat and the sides, and bring them all together for the final dish.
This recipe is always a winner and super simple!
Ingredients for your Potjie
1kg lamb potjie meat
3 tins whole tomatoes
500ml red wine
tbsp olive oil
4 onions l
4 tbsp garlic
1 tbsp ginger
400g brown mushrooms
50g rosemary
50g thyme
1 tsp smoked paprika
salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
How to make the potjie
Cut up the onions and fry in the potjie pot with some olive oil until brown.
Add garlic and ginger and continue cooking.
Slice the mushrooms and add to the onion, garlic and ginger mix.
Brown the meat on an oven tray at 220 degrees for 20 mins.
Add the browned meat, tomatoes and herbs to the potjie pot and simmer for 2 hours or more.
Open the lid just before the meat is tender to reduce the sauce.
Pair your potjie with rice or polenta. Enjoy!
Please tag me on Instagram if you’ve made this recipe, I’d love to see it!
I have also created a Mussels potjie pot recipe, featuring Cape Malay flavours and to be served with a pot bread side for YOU Magazine. Sign up to my newsletter (below) to receive it!
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About Shawn Godfrey
Photo credit: Niki M Photography
Shawn Godfrey is an entrepreneur based in Cape Town, South Africa. After the Covid-19 lockdown saw his business in financial distress, cooking was the creative outlet that helped to keep him sane. To keep track of his recipes, and encourage friends and families to join him, he starts his instagram account The Roasted Dad.
Fast-forward to late 2021 - on a whim Shawn (encouraged by his wife Lianne) enters MasterChef South Africa. It is a crazy time of life: running a 200 people business and struggling to keep it profitable, two small children with a third on the way, and about to move into a new house. But when Shawn gets selected to be one of the 20 contestants participating in the fourth season of MasterChef South Africa, he decides to go all in. Leaving his 7-month-pregnant wife to look after their then three and one-year-old children, he battles it out and comes back home five weeks later with the trophy and a million rand prize money in his pocket.
It all started with an Instagram account, but The Roasted Dad is so much more now. Shawn has stayed his entrepreneurial self and whilst he hosts Private Dinner Parties and Cook-with-Me Demos, does Restaurant Take-Overs, he still runs the lighting company and several other businesses.
On his blog, Shawn shares Restaurant Reviews and Accommodation Reviews, and gives an insight into the wild and wonderful life he leads together with his wife Lianne, and their three children Aiden (6), Olivia (4) and Harvey (2).
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When Pick n Pay sent me these wok cucumbers, my first reaction was “What the wok?”
But after working with this beautiful ingredient I am hooked. Use the cucumber as a replacement for marrows and in stir fry, it’s divine!