Throwback Thursday: Pap and chakalaka

When I was in boarding school in the late 1960s, in Windhoek, the house cooks used to make pap when, very rarely, they treated us to a braai at the end of the school day, in the grounds of the boarding school. That pap was as plain as plain could be, stodgy as hell, and there was little to like, let alone get excited about. So that tainted pap for me forever. Until now.

So, it would be disingenuous (but not surprising) of me not to put my hands up at the outset and say that I have never been a fan of pap. At which, hordes of patriotic fellow citizens of the sunny south will throw their own hands up in horror and mutter darkly. But it’s true so there’s no point in pretending otherwise.

Having said that, when I finally, finally, made some this week, in the interests of research for this piece, you understand, it became something of a journey. Purists, turn the other way now, block your ears, play some very loud music: because I found that, once I’d added heaps and heaps of butter, and then also some of the pan drippings from some sausages I’d cooked to eat with the pap, it was transformed into something very desirable.

Chakalaka? It strikes me that this relish grew a massive new market beyond its township roots when canny (so to speak) manufacturers of canned goods such as tomatoes and baked beans decided to put chakalaka in tins too. I was chatting to my Chicago mate Chris Pretorius about this the other night on WhatsApp and he was telling me how chakalaka is a running joke in his (American) family because when they visited here circa 2000, they first heard the word in a game park and asked someone what it was. Thereafter, everyone they met invited them around for chakalaka, as if it had always been there. This from a boertjie boy born in Pretoria and who had left as an adult after years in the theatre world. I concur; I don’t remember chakalaka beyond perhaps 15 or so years ago. And since then it has become an everyday part of our eating lives and common at so many braais.

But many of those versions of “chakalaka”, well… are they really? It seems that many people just fling a can of chopped tomatoes in a bowl, add some chopped peppers and chilli, and call it chakalaka. And that’s not it, if my research is not lying to me.

Judging by a slew of recipes I read from cooks and chefs across the spectrum, it became clear that good chakalala must have: tomatoes, peppers (capsicum), chillies, onion, carrots, ginger, baked beans, spices, salt and pepper. Most are finished with chopped coriander. Many include thyme.

Professionals including Siba Mtongana, Dorah Sitole and The Lazy Makoti include all of the above ingredients, while the late, great Sitole also included cauliflower in her recipe. They vary on the quantity of carrots: some say 2, others 3 or 4, one cites as many as 5. Generally, they call for curry powder at least; some also include thyme. Sitole includes curry paste, rather than dried masala powder, and cayenne pepper, as well as chicken stock. I’m not sure I see the point of the stock. Others don’t call for it.

Zola Nene, in a recipe she shared with Gordon Ramsay, included curry leaves and apple cider vinegar. The latter makes sense; vinegar is good in a relish. Curry leaves can only give it a very distinctive flavour (that being what it is) so if they’re used, your chakalaka is certainly going to stand out from the rest, though it may not be truly authentic.

A BBC Good Food recipe calls for “piri piri spice blend” and optional “spiced apple chutney, BBQ sauce, jerk sauce or piri-piri sauce to taste”, for goodness sake, and our own Jan Braai adds bay leaf as well as paprika.

I am sticking largely to the very clear theme of onion, tomato, chilli, bell peppers, garlic, ginger, carrots and baked beans, but I’m going out on a limb with the spices and adding, as well as whatever masala (curry powder) you may have in the pantry, some ground coriander and ground fennel, both being the powdered seeds. For baked beans, I found a product called baked beans in hot chakalaka sauce, which made sense.

As for pap, aka braai pap, stywepap (it’s stywepap when it’s particularly thick, especially once cooled), or its first cousin putu pap (or phuthu) and known in Afrikaans as krummelpap (the maize meal has a pleasant crumbly texture which is one of its best assets), quantities diverge from cook to cook. With putu/ krummelpap, less water is used in search of a crumbly finish.

For putu pap, Jan Braai, who says pap is “sometimes difficult to make if you didn’t grow up in the Free State”, uses 2 cups water to 3 cups maize meal; for regular pap, Ace brand maize meal advises use of 1 litre of water to 2 cups meal; while a Woolworths Taste recipe calls for 6 cups water to 300 g maize meal, which seems to be seeking a creamier, less stiff finish.

The Lazy Makoti, offering the Pedi version of pap, calls for only water and maize meal without giving quantities, and advises that once it’s boiling you should “whisk in the maize meal with ‘lefehlo” (mix quickly to prevent lumping)”. I’d advise using a strong whisk for this rather than a wooden spoon.

Chakalaka

3 Tbsp cooking oil

1 large onion, finely chopped

3 garlic cloves, chopped

3 carrots, peeled and grated

1 x 3 cm piece of fresh ginger, peeled and grated

1 x 400 g can chopped tomatoes

60 ml tomato paste

1 small red, 1 green and 1 yellow bell pepper, seeded and cut into 2 or 3 cm strips

1 or 2 green chillies, chopped

1 Tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1 tsp ground coriander

1 tsp ground fennel

1 tsp hot masala

1 x 400 g can of baked beans in hot chakalaka sauce

Salt to taste

Black pepper to taste

Chopped coriander leaves for garnish

Method

Sauté the onion with the garlic in oil, stirring, until softened. Add the carrots, two thirds of the ginger, chopped tomatoes and tomato paste, stir and cook for 5 minutes. Add the peppers, chillies, thyme and spices, season to taste with salt and black pepper, and cook for a further 5 minutes, gently. 

Stir in the baked beans and the remainder of the ginger, heat through, and either serve it hot, or cool and refrigerate it as a cold braai side relish. Chop some coriander leaves and stir it in or garnish with it.

Pap

1 litre water

2 cups super maize meal

Salt to taste

Butter to taste

Method

That last ingredient is key to my recipe. It really can take a lot of butter.

Bring salted water to a boil and very slowly pour in the maize meal while whisking constantly. Keep whisking until there are no more lumps and it has thickened.

Add as much butter as you like to finish it off once the pap is smooth and free of lumps. Because you’re baas vannie plaas, or boss of your own kitchen, you’re free to use your ingenuity to add all manner of other things that you think might enhance the pap. I don’t see any reason, personally, why some cooked, chopped bacon would not be a good idea. If you think about it. I know you’re thinking about it. Go on, get the bacon out and into the pan, now. (Add the bacon fat too.) DM/TGIFood