This past weekend I braved Makro and the evil hordes which invade it on weekends to buy my first potjie since I had asked some friends over on Sunday for a late lunch. Since I have never made a potjie before I did some searches on line and found a few articles, but in the end decided to just go crazy. From all accounts the food was good so here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
- 1.3kilos of beef, cubed into about half inch sizes
- 3 crazy big carrots, diced into bit size pieces
- 4 large sweet potatoes, cubed in to about half inch sizes
- 2 pundits of button mushrooms, diced
- 2 green peppers diced
- 2 large sweet peppers diced
- A cast of other things I forgot about now and will unveil during the preparation.
Cooking:
Take the meat and added some freshly ground thyme, rosemary, and Robinson's meat tenderizer. Put that in a container and add a couple of dollops of Mrs Balls chuckney, BBQ flavored marinade and Bandito hot sauce (I used the 5 heat level one). Close container, shake and store in fridge turning every so often until needed. Mine sat for about 3 hours but the longer you leave it the better.
Once your potjie is nice and hot add all the veggies plus half a liter of water and leave for about 30min-45min.
Next add the meat and the basting sauce it has been in to the mix and throw in two cubes of beef stock, and two packets (50g each) of tomato paste. Mix well. Close lid and leave for 2 to 3 hours stirring every 15-20min.
Eventually the liquid should be low and you get more of a thick sauce than soup (think of it as a stew almost). If it starts to catch on the bottom it's ready and has been for 10min or so. Move it to a low heat and dish up on rice.