How and what to cook when the lights go out

The old kitchens all had ranges where great fires would be lit, serving to cook their food as well as keep them warm. Cast-iron pots would be suspended above the flames while the contents bubbled and became tender and delicious. Braces of hare and game birds would hang in sheds to mature before heading for the pot. Meat would be cured with salt or in brine so that it would keep for the lean times. These are things of speciality food makers today. Back then, it was just how things were done.

Open fire cooking

Behold the open fire. The braai, the pizza oven, the smoking shed, the spit for roasting the lamb or pig. All of these things can be used without electrical power.

Open fire cooking is all the rage in the cheffy world. Smoking, singeing, charring, even cooking whole potatoes right in the coals until the outer skin forms a blackened shell. Yet, inside, there is wondrously beautiful soft potato flesh, needing only butter and salt to make it even more perfect. Try my recipe for ash-baked potatoes.

Try the reverse sear method for steak on the coals, or perfect the twice-cooked picanha. And then there’s one of my signature braai dishes, deboned leg of lamb. 

Or try smoke-braaing a spatchcock chicken under a dome. And this recipe for Asian-marinated spatchcock chicken explains how to do it, using bamboo skewers, to prevent the bird falling apart on the grid.

Load shedding cooking kit

Load shedding kit need not be only about solar gear and inverters. You might consider buying a paella pan or a plancha, that flat griddle that conducts heat perfectly for grilling on or close to fire; or metal espetada skewers and sturdy cast-iron skillets to put right on the grid. 

Try my recipes for beef espetada and for chicken espetada. If you don’t have skewers, you can use bay or rosemary branches for skewering the meat.

There’s much more you can do.

Root out your gran’s old jaffle iron or buy a new one. Buy a salt rock, which heats on a grid above very hot coals and, when hot enough, you can braai courgettes or cauliflower steaks on it, or beef steaks, chops or boerewors. Just don’t salt anything when you cook on a salt rock; it takes on more than enough salty flavour from the rock. 

Take the wok out to the braai and use it above the coals for a stir-fry; there’s no reason why not. Build that outside pizza oven you’ve often talked about, or buy a ready-to-use one. 

Invest in a single or double countertop gas plate and a small gas bottle; if you’re a camper, you’ll no doubt have plenty of kit already that you can use in the backyard or on the patio when the power is off.

It goes without saying that all the usual braai-side gear is fit for load shedding: your grids and tongs, potjies and basting brushes. To these basics, add foil and skewers, candles and gas lamps, and order bakkie loads of braai wood.

The braai room

There’s a room in many homes called the braai r0om. A lot of English South Africans turn their noses up at them as being a very Afrikaans thing. That’s silly. It’s eminently sensible, especially in winter and most especially whenever there’s no power. 

While many of us will be shivering over bowls of leftover pasta salad this winter, those with indoor braais will be having a whale of a time with cosy family suppers or parties in their braai rooms. 

Anything that can be cooked on an outside braai can be transferred to the indoor braai, including potjies. The ventilation, obviously, has to be correct.

Even things normally cooked in an oven can be made outdoors or in a braai room. Such as potato and other vegetable bakes with a lid on top, on which you can put coals. I made a potato bake in a pot in the coals. Breads and certain cakes too: try my chimichurri braai bread. Braaibroodjies too, of course.

Potjie roasting

You all know that a chicken can be roasted in a potjie (like my ginger chicken potjie roast), because I’ve shared my recipes for those many times. I’ve done lamb neck pot roasts and shanks in a potjie too, like this one. 

So while the summer is still here, with a pleasant shoulder season to follow, plan braai parties for when the shedding schedule kicks in.

Planning ahead, repurposing

We can also plan ahead, using our cunning to prepare, today, a meal that can double up in a night or two. Make food ahead for reheating when the power is back on: leftover cooked chicken can become a filling for sandwiches or be turned into Coronation Chicken.

Cook more potatoes than you need. If making mashed potato, mash half and refrigerate the rest intact. A night or two later, slice them into rounds to make potato scallops. 

A jar of pesto in the fridge? Try my pesto potato salad. Or use spring onions and chives for this fresh take on one. Leftover rice and pasta can easily be turned into a salad. Caprese salad is a great supper that needs no cooking.

The same applies to cooked fish or prawns. The latter becomes a delicious cold meal when mixed with mayonnaise and chopped peppers, tomato and cucumber, and suitable herbs and spices; the former can be made into kedgeree, the traditional curried fish and rice dish. Or make an old-fashioned avocado and shrimp salad.

Tinned goods are often frowned upon by the snobby lobby of the food brigade. But they obviously sell, or there wouldn’t be so many of them in the supermarkets, and when the lights are out, a can of cold tuna (opened with a hand-held can opener; this is no time for electric ones) is easily turned into a lovely summer salad or sandwich filling.

And we haven’t even touched on olives, capers, jars of beetroot salad, and the many wonders we can pick up at any farm stall throughout the land. Many of the contents of those jars can be brought into play for a load shedding meal.

But the greater attraction, for this carnivore, is that braai out there. And I am now eyeing the front room and picturing an indoor braai in it. Just as soon as we can afford to install solar. (Also read the column that accompanies this story.) DM/TGIFood