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How life-affirming Bone Broth came to define my cooking year

Japie’s favourite pudding: Tony Jackman’s take on ‘Japie se Gunsteling’, a baked self-saucing citrus pudding. 7 May 2024. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

By Tony Jackman

20 Dec 2024

I have a simple rule. If I whisper to myself, ‘I’d make this again’, it means I’m very happy with a dish I’ve just made. Here’s my pick of the 20 recipes that had me talking to myself in 2024. Read to the end for my Top 10. (No scrolling please, you’ll spoil the fun.)

When your job is to do what I have to do on almost every day of the year, you don’t often repeat a recipe. There’s just no time when you’re publishing five new recipes a week from January to December. Look, this isn’t a complaint. It’s an honour to be paid for indulging your hobby.

I am human though. There are days when I just can’t find the inspiration to do anything more than throw some pasta in a pot and knock a simple sauce together. Every now and then I mutter, “I’m taking tonight off” — this, always, after checking that I have recipes for the following publishing days. So there are other times when I have to come up with something, so I do, simple as that. It’s a job after all.

But among all of that there are the gems. Not in a boastful way. More like grateful. Like the day, back in May, when I decided I’d add preserved green figs to bread and butter pudding. Why, why, why had I never thought of that before, I asked myself afterwards. Anyway, that makes it one of my recipes of the year.

Eureka moments occurred now and then, and I kept a list of them, and herewith, in no particular order, are the 20 recipes that made me feel good about myself and what I do for a living.

I’ve divided them into five categories — breakfast, soups and starters, air fryer, mains, and desserts. As I work through them, I will choose a top 10 as well.

Food Editor’s breakfast recipes of the year

High spec: Baked beans on toast, spruced up. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The lekkerest of our Lekker Brekker Monday recipes, for me, was the popular breakfast choice of baked beans on toast, specced up, while I was also thrilled with the potato and bacon cakes I made earlier in the year, so that comes a close second.

Third was a breakfast pan pie, which uses shop-bought puff pastry covered with tomatoes, bacon, red onion, thyme and mature Cheddar which I sourced from Cookhouse Creamery.

Also vying for a position on this list of my brekker favourites was my cheesy polenta with a fried egg and onion-tomato relish.

Food Editor’s soups and starters recipes of the year

This is a very personal choice for me. I made bone broth soon after my friend Sandra started undergoing months of gruelling chemotherapy. It had spread “everywhere” and everyone was understandably dire and pessimistic about any remote hope of success. In a giant “dek”, those massive aluminium pots, I stewed many bones (beef, mutton, pork, any bones at all will do) and especially marrow bones, with lots of vegetables and mild seasonings, for up to 48 hours. Even through the night on the lowest heat with the lid on.

This was all she could eat, with few exceptions, for those long months. She says it kept her alive and made her able to endure the chemo. I say the medics did that, which they did, it cannot be denied. But if it helped, even psychologically, and if you know somebody who is going through that, buy one of those big pots and make them a big load of bone broth. Once cooked, it needs to be strained through a fine sieve, poured into containers, sealed and frozen until needed, when it needs to be thawed, heated and consumed. Then, keep in touch with the patient to find out when it’s time for you to make a new batch. Please pass this on — it’s terribly important.

My soup (or starter) of the year, then, is:

Bone broth, the elixir of our time

Tony Jackman’s bone broth after two full days of cooking. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I wrote, in August: “Broth. Brodo. Stock. Bouillon. Consommé. They are all, to a point, the same thing, though the lauded French soup known as consommé differs in that it is refined with egg whites before serving.

“Restorative. Restoratif. Did you know that the word ‘restaurant’ has its roots in those words back there? A place where you go to consume things that will restore the body, beef you up. Literally, when we’re talking about bone broth, or stock. Foods that contain things like collagen and calcium. Elixirs.”

Bone broth, an essential stock made of bones boiled for many hours with aromatics, is punted as an elixir that will heal you in many ways, and lead to weight loss. The minerals in your resulting broth after many hours of cooking will include potassium, calcium, phosphorus and magnesium, all of benefit to human metabolism, experts say.

Read my full story here, which of course includes the recipe, which needs to be multiplied so that your patient/friend/family member has plenty to live on while enduring that horribly invasive treatment.

Pâté deluxe: Tony Jackman’s chicken liver pâté and hanepoot-sultana chutney, photographed at the Tuishuise & Victoria Manor, Cradock. Cooked by Tony Jackman, plated by chef Maswazandile (Maswazi) Mabusela. June 2024. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I chose two starters as well for this category. The first is my decadent chicken liver pâté with hanepoot sultana chutney, which I served at a festival lunch at Cradock’s Victoria Manor Hotel, which happens to be owned by my friend. It was without doubt and by several miles the finest chicken liver pâté I have made in my life. Which I say with gratitude.

A real gem: Tony’s parmesan gem squash, served as a starter at a dinner party. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Then there is my signature Parmesan gem squash, but this time I served it as a starter course in its own right, and I used loads of butter and masses of grated Parmesan. I think it should become a distinctively South African starter, so please share and spread the word, and let me know if you’ve made it.

Food Editor’s air fryer recipe of the year

If I write about cooking chicken in an air fryer, the story flies. It’s obvious that chicken recipes are devoured by most people who own an air fryer.

I’ve roasted whole chickens various ways in one of my air fryers, usually the biggest one. But only once have I been moved to write, “this was my best air fryer roast chicken yet”. We’ll come to that in a moment, but first, I have another chicken recipe that I’ve chosen as my top air fryer recipe of the year. It also involves chicken, but portions rather than a whole bird. So, my top air fryer recipe of 2024 is:

Roast chicken thighs and drumsticks with gin and orange

Exotic flavour: Tony Jackman’s chicken portions roasted in an air fryer with gin and orange. June 2024. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Honestly, I could make and eat this every night. If you love a succulent chicken thigh with crispy skin as much as I do, and fulsome flavour, this recipe has both. The gin and orange work together to make a bit of magic, and this can work either as a snack for a crowd (just multiply the recipe and cook them in batches) or as a main event with sides of your choice. Here’s the story and recipe.

That roast chicken is my second pick of the year for an air fryer. It’s zesty and honeyed, so it is really an air fryer version of the popular roast chicken with honey and lemon.

My third and final air fryer recipe of the year is completely different. I concocted a recipe made in ramekins and featuring eggs with bits of this and that. It worked a treat and is a quick and easy breakfast fix.

I called them Egg Pots, because why not, and here’s the recipe.

Food Editor’s main course recipe of the year

Tony Jackman’s Durban curry cooked in a potjie. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I didn’t set out to include several potjie recipes but when I perused my shortlist for this category I counted four. I assessed the four and chose one to leave out. Of the remaining three potjie recipes I chose the following one as my main course of the year.

The date was the 11th day of April, a day before what would have been my father’s 104th birthday, and nine days before my 69th. These are days and years when you start to pay more attention to things like that. You count the things that count.

It’s a lovely way to prepare a Durban curry, and while the potjie is bubbling and burbling you can make your rice and sambals, ready for the feast. Here’s the recipe.

Moroccan chicken Potjie-roasted chicken: There’s a clear Moroccan flavour to this bird, but the cooking vessel is as South African as boerewors and tjoppies. (Photo: Tony Jackman) Potjie-roasted chicken: There’s a clear Moroccan flavour to this bird, but the cooking vessel is as South African as boerewors and tjoppies. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

The other two potjie recipes in this category are my potjie-roasted Moroccan chicken and potatoes and beef oxtail Pinotage potjie, which I punted as “a Karoo take on Boeuf Bourguignon”. The chicken recipe was the latest on my growing list of chickens roasted in a potjie.

My other two picks for this category were also meaty, but nothing to do with a potjie.

The first is twice-cooked whole mutton rib, and it cooks slowly in the oven first, in a lake of lamb stock, Worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, lemon juice, garlic and rosemary. Then it rests in its juices until it has cooled to room temperature. Later in the day you light a fire, pour drinks for your mates, and gather at the braai to finish the rib on hot coals to crisp it up.

Tony Jackman’s whole mutton rib cooked to succulent perfection. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Finally, while writing in Calvinia in April I cooked myself a lovely hunk of sirloin with a generous fat cap, with pink peppercorns, coriander, garlic and fennel. A feast for one at the end of a writing day.

Food Editor’s dessert of the year

Hmmm, stiff competition in this category. I seem to have had a bit of a pudding year. I made waffles and salted apricot butter to spread on them while still hot. I made Japie se Gunsteling and told the story of that wonderful pudding.

I also made a traditional Tipsy Tart (Cape Brandy Pudding) and delved into the story of that too, and did another version in which I got figgy with it. I even turned to the chilled side of things and made something I hadn’t ever attempted: panna cotta.

But my pick of my desserts of 2024 is:

Bread and butter pudding with a touch of the Karoo

A classic, updated: Tony Jackman’s traditional bread and butter pudding with a touch of the Karoo in the form of green fig preserves and their syrup. May 2024. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

And that touch of the Karoo is what else but preserved green figs. If there’s ever to be another cookbook from me, this recipe for bread and butter pudding with preserved green figs would be a cert for inclusion, that’s how much I loved this pudding. It sings of my youth (and most likely yours) and of my English roots while celebrating the Karoo that I love. Perfick.

Classic remix: Cape Brandy Pudding, aka Tipsy Tart, gets a tweak of green fig preserve in this version. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

I also got figgy with my second choice. I added tiny bits of chopped preserved green figs, and some of their syrup from the jar, to a recipe for Tipsy Tart. This was for a lunch for lovely visitors, and they were very happy indeed (I also served the Parmesan gem squash to them). Here’s the recipe.

There are three more dessert recipes in my selection. The first of these is Japie se Gunsteling, which I seriously considered as the sweet recipe of the year. The story is well worth a read, even if you don’t make the pudding.

Japie’s favourite pudding: Tony Jackman’s take on ‘Japie se Gunsteling’, a baked self-saucing citrus pudding. 7 May 2024. (Photo: Tony Jackman)

Next is not necessarily the dessert itself (a waffle) but what I smeared on it: I made salted apricot butter and drenched the hot waffle with it, and oh my, what a treat. You have to try it.

And finally, that panna cotta. The story is/was Panna cotta, the cooked cream of cold puddings, and it was made with Musgrave rose water pink gin and served with macerated strawberries. And yes, it did have a wobble. But no, you don’t have to shake your pudding bowl at the dinner table and say “oooh yes, it wobbles” while everyone else tries not to roll their eyes too obviously.

Before I go, here’s my personal Top 10 of all the above recipes

Bone broth

Roast chicken thighs and drumsticks with gin and orange

Durban Curry in a potjie

Bread and butter pudding with a touch of the Karoo

Decadent chicken liver pâté with hanepoot sultana chutney

Get figgy with traditional Tipsy Tart

Moroccan chicken and potatoes in a potjie

Japie se Gunsteling

Baked beans on toast, specced up

Potato and bacon cakes

Which means — clashing of drums and cymbals and a tinkling of timpani please — that my recipe of the year is Sandra’s restorative Bone Broth. Make it in 2025 for someone you love who needs it. DM

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