AirFryday: Ouma innie air fryer!

Cabbage and meatballs are found in cuisines from Sweden to Serbia, north Africa to Asia, but in South Africa we regard this soul-warming comfort dish as all our own. For the uninitiated, ouma “innie” air fryer is a colloquial alternative to ouma “in die” or “in the” air fryer. But “innie” just works better.

Meatballs wrapped in cabbage leaves are a popular family supper in both the old Cape Dutch and Cape Malay traditions, though in slightly different ways. The Cape Malay version differs in that the blanketed meatballs are cooked on top of a partially cooked bredie, or mutton stew.

To get right back to basics, let’s start with the standard South African dish as described in SJA de Villiers’s classic Cook & Enjoy. Her recipe is straightforward, no frills, and the meat is either beef or mutton mince with a smaller amount of pork mince. Like most recipes it includes milk-soaked bread (which must be squeezed out so that your meatballs don’t become soggy), onion, parsley, a little nutmeg and the binding of an egg. Instructions vary from recipe to recipe in this regard; some call for two or even more eggs, others for two to four slices of bread. Cook & Enjoy requires only one slice of bread and one egg. My recipe differs slightly.

In my browsings I found a recipe that includes ginger, another with cumin, and some of the old traditional recipes call for the dish to be served with mustard on the side. In my version, I have taken some of these elements but ignored others. I wanted to keep it simple while ensuring a delicious flavour, and it’s important to salt the meat fairly generously or they will turn out too bland.

So I did use garlic, and I included a heaped teaspoon of hot English mustard in the mince before forming meatballs, while also serving some mustard on the side. I also added the grated zest of an orange, because it’s orange season now and I felt the mixture needed a bit of zing. I chose to make big, really plump meatballs and to use the outer leaves of a large cabbage, which is more in line with traditional old Cape recipes.

Polite versions of how to deal with the cabbage leaves would have you cutting away the hard stems of the leaves, but look at how the spines of the cabbage leaves relate so beautifully to the meat inside.

The traditional Afrikaans way is to arrange them in a greased baking dish and add any remaining juices from the pan in which you fried the meatballs, then bake them for 20 minutes to half an hour. This is the part that I did in an air fryer instead.

The result was good, but a little different. As you can see in the photo, the cabbage and meatball somehow melded together, with the cabbage turning opaque, so that you can see the meatball through the leaf. I find this visually appealing.

Parsley is commonly used in the meatballs for the traditional recipe, but since I could not find any in my local shops, I compensated with other ingredients, chiefly orange, nutmeg and a generous hand with the mustard. By all means add some finely chopped parsley if you like.

Tony’s ouma innie air fryer (meatballs in cabbage leaves)

Ingredients

700 g lean beef mince

1 large onion, very finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, finely chopped

2 slices day-old white bread soaked in milk, then squeezed out

Grated zest of 1 orange, but not the juice

1 heaped tsp Hot English mustard

3 gratings of nutmeg

Salt and black pepper to taste

1 XL egg, beaten

3 Tbsp cooking oil (canola or sunflower)

Cooking oil spray

A little flour

Method

In a bowl, combine the mince, orange zest, onion, garlic and nutmeg, and season well with salt and black pepper. Using clean hands, thoroughly mix the ingredients.

Soak 2 slices of day-old household bread in milk to cover and, a minute later, squeeze out all the milk and crumble the sodden bread into the mixture. Mix again with your hands.

Add the beaten egg and continue to mix, still using your hands.

Scatter some flour on a board. Divide the mixture into 6 equal portions. Roll each portion into a meatball.

Roll them around in the flour on a board. Set aside.

Pour a little oil into a pan on a medium heat and brown the meatballs on all sides. Season with salt and pepper on both sides during the cooking.

Wash the cabbage leaves and plunge them into boiling water for about 5 minutes, then drain thoroughly. They don’t need to be refreshed in cold water.

Pat the meatballs dry and wrap each in a (patted-dry) cabbage leaf.

Preheat the air fryer to 170°C. Spray the bottom with cooking oil spray.

Arrange the meatballs in the basket (do them in batches if necessary) and bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until they are cooked to the centre.

Serve with mashed potato and wholegrain mustard on the side. DM

Tony Jackman is twice winner of the Galliova Food Writer of the year award, in 2021 and 2023

Order Tony’s book, foodSTUFF, here.

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