Some of you know that up to a few weeks ago I had a 21 year black South African girlfriend called “Clara”…things didn`t work out between us and so we broke up, gutted wasn`t the word for the way I felt and still do a bit, but that all water under the bridge, she left me with a sort of legacy, well for me it`s a sort of legacy, it was in the shape of a South African spicy dish called “Sadza”
Really the dish is made up of two parts, the actual stew and then there`s the maize meal, now, if your good a cooking then go for making them both, but be warned apparently as Clara told me some months ago when I first had Sadza if the maize meal isn`t cooked right it can cause stomach ache, having said that, I`m no great cook, I`m ok for a man who can cook, and on the 7 times that I`m made the meal I`ve never suffered with guts ache…
| INGREDIENTS |
Stewing steak to cover how many your cooking for.
1 Onion.
1-2 tins of chopped tomatoes with garlic (not whole toms) get these from Kwik Save or wherever…or one tin of chopped toms and add your own garlic.
Buttons Mushrooms….again get as many as you think for the amount of people your cooking for.
1 Red pepper (at least) or 2 if you want.
(that`s it for the stew)…..
1 bag of Maize meal or perhaps two…get the yellow coloured meal….
| Method |
Firstly, “Boil” the steak until it`s pretty tender, and at the same time chop all the button mushrooms into halfs and boil them until they`re tender (separate saucepans of course).
Finely chop the onion and lightly fry that, but try to make sure it doesn`t turn brown, de-core the red pepper or peppers and slice into not too big or small pieces, and gently fry these with the onion…
You need to drain most of the juice out of the tomatoes, then even if they are chopped you need to break them down even more into a semi mush with the aid of a spud masher.
You also need to make up a half or three quarter measuring jug of gravy, thickish is possible (use beef gravy granules, that will be ok), that`s what Clara use to use.
Right, when the stewing steak and mushrooms are both tender you need to put these into a big saucepan together with the mushed-up tomatoes & Garlic, or add about one or one & a half cloves of Garlic, fried onion & red pepper(s), and gravy and cook all this together for about half and hour, and that is your stew….hmmm lovely…
(Maize meal).
Cooking maize meal is done in a similar way to how we used to “Cook” the old style Birds Custard powder, using a decent sized saucepan mix part of the maize meal with cold water to form a thinish paste, put saucepan onto cooker to cook the mixture and start adding more maize but keep stirring all the time to stop it going lumpy, it can turn lumpy or burn on the bottom of the saucepan quite easily.
Once you mixed in a small bag or whatever of maize meal just keep stirring the mixture until it all start to gets thick, once it thickens up don`t stop mixing, keep mixing for a little while longer so as to make sure the maize meal is properly cooked….
Of course, if making maize meal is too much hassle for you or you don`t fancy trying it, then use rice, it`s not the same but I`m sure it`ll suffice….
Once the maize meal is cooked and it`s turned into a pretty thick paste you need to serve it up with the stew and eat it ASAP because warm or cold maize meal is not nice..
| Serving method |
Now….this next bit might sound funny but it`s the way that Sadza is eaten, share the stew between how many people you are cooking for, but put “ALL” the maize meal onto one big plate, you don`t use knifes, forks or spoons with this meal, the only things you will need is a big bowl of warm-water and a clean cloth for wiping your hands on…it`s a beautiful meal but quite messy….
The idea is to take of a small amount of maize meal from the place about the size of a table-tennis ball, and without too much fuss shape into a sort of ball, flatten the ball into a scoop-like shape and pick up the stew with the stew, the shaping, flattening and making the scoop-like shape with the maize meal should all be done in one hand, I found it quite hard, and Clara found it funny with my whitemans feeble effort, but with practise it becomes easy, I haven`t had this meal for weeks, but telling you how to make it has made me think that it`ll be Sadza-time again very soon…enjoy it……..Dr Jekyll.