Hi everybody!

I would like to finish off this month’s 'Monthly Event' with another  indigenous cuisine that is eaten and enjoyed by millions of South Africans. Remember in my volume 1 edition of “The World of Chakalaka - Let’s Protect Our Health Through Biodiversity!”, I had talked about being of Angolan decent, but a first generation South African. I also talked about a vegetable dish called kizaca and how though we live in South Africa, we still enjoy the dishes our forefathers grew up eating.

Today, I am going to touch base with a South African dish which, even I didn’t know, has a Mozambican traces. This dish is called Chakalaka.

Chakalaka

Chakalaka is a South African vegetable relish that is usually spicy. It is traditionally served with bread, pap, samp, stews, or curries. Chakalaka may have originated in the townships of Johannesburg or (what is more accepted) on the gold mines surrounding Johannesburg, when Mozambican mineworkers coming off shift cooked tinned produce (tomatoes, beans) with chili to produce a spicy relish with a Portuguese flair to accompany pap.

The many variations on how to make chakalaka often depend on region and family tradition. Some versions include beans, cabbage and butternut. For example, a tin of baked beans, tin of tomatoes, onion, garlic, and some curry paste can be used to make the dish.

If the 'sauce' had a chance to sit, it would have thickened and the flavours would have had a chance to improve wonderfully to create the spicy condiment we know as chakalaka today.

Chakalaka can be served with a multitude of side meals.

It's served as both a sauce and a relish, but also as a cold salad with other greens. And don't think it's only served in shebeens or braais (this is a South African term for barbecue), but cities and restaurants are proud to show how they fuse first world cuisine with third by serving chakalaka in various guises.

There's so much you can do with chakalaka once you've made a good lot of it. Leave it for a day or so for the flavours to fuse, then use in bread or muffin mixes, as a marinade for meat and kebabs, over pilchards, hamburgers, fish cakes; with pap and wors (South African term for sausage), with a Malay curry or stirred into mixed vegetables, sprinkled with cheese and grilled. In fact, it tastes so good that many a big food company has included it in its lineup of products, from stock and dry spice in a box to tinned chakalaka in medium or hot, braai marinades, 'pap mixes' and more.

Homemade chakalaka (Rubin,. et al, 2005).

Like most recipes, chakalaka ingredients vary quite a bit, but you won't go wrong with this perfect chakalaka recipe. The ingredients almost always include grated carrots, chopped garlic, chunks of green pepper, sliced onion, cauliflower florets, chopped chillies, curry powder and a tin of baked beans

I like this dish so much that I don’t eat it with any meat type, it really is a good dish that bring people together over a braai of a get-together.

Thanks for reading guys! Let’s continue celebrating Biodiversity month throughout our day-to-day lives!

References

Rubin, N.; Temkin, N. (2005). Chic Jozi: The Jo'burg Pocketbook. Penguin Random House South Africa. p. 84. ISBN 978-1-86872-942-5. Retrieved November 3, 2017.