Potjiekos
The stew cooked in a three-legged iron pot over the embers, shared in Namibia and South Africa: meat at the bottom and vegetables in layers, never stirred, for hours.
Ingredients
- 1.2 kg bone-in lamb or beef, in pieces
- 2 onions
- 4 carrots
- 4 potatoes
- 1 sweet potato
- 200 g green beans
- 200 g mushrooms
- 300 ml stock and 200 ml red wine
- 2 tablespoons of spice mix (paprika, coriander, cumin)
- Oil and salt
How to make it at home
- Brown the meat in oil in a cast-iron pot and add the onion.
- Pour in the wine and stock and add the spices; cook covered over a low heat for 1½ hours.
- Layer the vegetables on top: the hardest first (carrot, potato, sweet potato), then the green beans and mushrooms.
- Cover and cook for 1 more hour, without stirring, so each layer cooks in its own steam.
- Serve at the table straight from the pot, with bread or rice.
The trick: No stirring: that’s the rule of the potjie.