TGIFood

Get to flavours quicker — Reuben Riffel’s tasty braai tips

Fire and meat: illustrative photo from the ‘Get to flavours quicker’ chapter in Braai, by Reuben Riffel. (Photo: Craig Fraser | composite by Tony Jackman)

By TGIFood Writer

20 Sep 2024

This is an extract from Reuben Riffel’s new book, Braai, published by Quivertree.

There are many different ways I get to certain flavours. Sometimes I’m really passionate about the marinating. I can also get passionate about the cooking temperature, because that adds flavour or takes flavour away. And then I would say I’m a bit of a hoarder of condiments... from really simple flavourings to spices and umami ingredients.

I like bold flavours. I’m not into the whole subtlety thing, but I’m not someone who wants to marinate everything I put on the braai either.

We’re very lucky with the ingredients that are available to us in South Africa. The variety and quality is just insane, so you often don’t need to do too much to it. For example, when you’ve got beautifully fresh ingredients, which already have a big flavour like, say, whole prawns, all you need is salt and pepper and hot coals. They don’t need anything more.

Fire and meat: illustrative photo from the ‘Get to flavours quicker’ chapter in Braai, by Reuben Riffel. (Photo: Craig Fraser | composite by Tony Jackman)

For steaks, I don’t use oil when I’m cooking them on the fire. Good meat doesn’t need it… With oil you get the wrong sort of smokiness from burning oil. Let’s say you season a steak with salt and pepper. If you leave it a little bit before cooking, it creates its own moisture. And that goes over the fire. You get such a clean, toasted, beautiful flavour. In the same way I can take a piece of springbok or kudu and let it lie in some red wine with some herbs, but I wouldn’t mess around with oil.

The oil burns on there, especially over high heat. That’s not actually what you want. The oil can be introduced after it comes off the fire if you want that flavour. If I do introduce oil to a lean meat that doesn’t have its own fat, it’s really just a tiny bit to give it a light coating. And butter… with beef fillet, I’ll sometimes do a beurre noisette (brown butter) which you brush lightly on to it, after the heat has reduced a bit, at the end of cooking.

Brining is a fabulous way of getting flavour below the surface, right into the meat, as well as giving you a really juicy texture. It works with anything that’s got natural fat – chicken, pork, or even if you’re cooking a whole salmon. I use a light brine with bay leaf, some garlic, obviously salt and sugar, and then just water. But you can add black pepper, whole cinnamon or fennel seeds or other spices to change things up. You soak the meat in the brine for maybe four hours and the sugar-salty brine carries the flavour deep inside the meat. Then it’s just a question of drying off the surface (in front of a fan), before it goes on to the fire, so the skin crisps up.

What we usually consider to be sides often complete the dish for me. Salsas, salads and vegetables cooked on the fire can even be the main event. In our household, Maryke, myself and Latika — and now Max has caught up too — we all love our vegetables. When I was growing up, vegetables were often just served with cheese sauce. We had a lot of root vegetables cooked in a wood-burning stove, but with that closed oven you don’t get close to the heat and smoke. Very seldom did my mom or my dad cook vegetables over the fire.

Tony Jackman’s weekly newsletter is packed with bright food ideas and delicious stories about food and life. Sign up to Tony’s weekly newsletter here. It’s free, and in your inbox every Friday afternoon. If it goes to promotions or spam at first, please drag it into your inbox.

At the moment, I’m impressed by the flavour you get from the Lebanese approach to charring vegetables on the fire. Aubergine surprises me all the time with how it handles high temperature – the char and what it brings to food – and so do celeriac and beetroot. Fierce heat changes the texture and gives an insane amount of flavour very quickly. Even things like cabbage, peas and mangetout are delicious over the fire. But you need the right sort of utensil… For example, in a sieve you can put them directly on the heat to get that hard, smoky char on them. Then you add the salt and the olive oil or whatever seasoning you want after they come off the coals.

When it comes to getting to flavour quicker, it starts (and often ends) with excellent quality ingredients. Such as the Rozendal vinegar I love. I tasted it for the first time ever on a fresh oyster, with some chopped onions and a mignonette sauce, and I was blown away. They age the vinegar in wine casks and it’s almost like it doesn’t need anything else with it. It’s stunning for deglazing pork and chicken, and you can drizzle it over lamb chops coming off the fire. So I end up using it for so many more things than just in a salad dressing.

I seldom marinate, but I’m starting to experiment more with marinades. My go-to for a good lamb chop is Worcestershire sauce and lemon juice, and some garlic and rosemary. I used to be one of those people who just didn’t like a chicken breast – I thought, why would somebody want such a dry piece of meat? Over time, I’ve learned how to cook it better over very hot coals… A chicken breast can be amazing, if you’ve done your work in marinating it and flavouring it. The same for a whole chicken or a flatty… but the marinade is always very light. I’ll use a bit of chicken stock and add lemon juice and fresh herbs. If I’m going Asian, maybe I’ll add a bit of ginger to it, a tiny bit of soy, but never heavy marinades or thick tomato sauce-based marinades.

When you do use a marinade, a sauce or a spice mix, most of the work goes on before the meat actually goes on the fire. Basting the meat too energetically when it’s on the braai, you’re actually brushing away flavour or you’re mixing it up with something else. I prefer to pat it on gently or drizzle it on. And I normally have a little bit of melted butter close by when I braai, which I’ll drizzle on towards the end of cooking. DM

This is an extract from Reuben Riffel’s new book, Braai (Quivertree Publications) | Creative Director Libby Doyle | Photography Craig Fraser | Styling Anke Roux |

Categories:

TGIFood

DM is much better if you are signed in...

TGIFood