Sunday Dinner, South African Style

We entertained today with a special dinner benefiting St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church. I had been thinking about offering this dinner to their annual fund-raiser auction since we visited Cape Town last August. I bought a cookbook there, the West Coast Cookbook, which is a cultural treasure. From this volume, I learned more about South African fish than I could ever put into practice, sad to say.

I read through the fall and winter months and soon realized that I had made a small error. All those great fish recipes were wonderful, but they required fish that I had never heard of! I should have realized that the fish off the west coast of South African were nothing like the ones I knew from New England, the seas around Denmark, or even from the Mediterranean coast of Spain. There were detailed descriptions of angelfish, galjoen, kingclip, and snoek, but the only one I recognized was hake, which this said was commonly called stockfish.  The first fish recipe I tried was "St. Helena Bay fish pie," a deep-dish baked fish casserole with mashed potato topping. It called only for "white fish fillets," and I found fillet of flounder. The best part of this effort was the mashed potato topping! The West Coast Cookbook makes large recipes--most for eight people--and I served this pie twice for our dinner, gave away one helping, and threw the rest in the trash! I think the problem was that I used frozen founder, and both the freezing and the lack of body in the flat flounder contributed to little taste. Looking at the recipe now, I can see how I might tackle it again differently,

In the meantime, however, I found "Fish Soup in a Potjie,"and since a potjie pot is one of the utensils that is unique to South Africa, and since I had brought a spice mix called potjiekos back with me, I next tried that. Learning from experience, I made half a recipe to start with. This recipe requires "1 kg whole Hottentot or any line fish," and I wondered what "line fish" is (one that is caught on a fishing line as opposed to gathered up in a net? No matter, I decided on cod, nice full-bodied fresh cod, possibly frozen before it reached the fish counter in my market, but at least showing no signs of a frozen state when it came to my eyes. The recipe also called for cooking the soup with the head of the fish in it, and removing the head before serving. Well, I never even saw the head and I don't think anyone is any the worse for it. This soup turned out to be a winner--my favorite brother-in-law told me today it was the highlight of the dinner--but not without some alteration on my part, including a boost with Knorr seafood bouillon that I found in Portugal, and the addition of a generous two teaspoons of that potjiekos spice (with no package indication of its ingredients, but it certainly includes pepper) I had brought back from South Africa.

My highlight of the dinner however, was the bobotjie, which had been my first meal in Cape Town, and one of the best. I didn't find a meat bobotjie recipe in this west coast cookbook, but I found several on the Internet; I tried this recipe out twice ahead of time and made only one small change in the method. So with the fish soup and bobotjie, I had my first and main courses set, but I continued to read from the cookbook for accompaniments. As I read through the various recipes, I noted several that said "often served on Sunday." It seemed only natural, then, to make this gift dinner a Sunday dinner experience. We did, with guests arriving shortly after their morning gatherings, and we had a very pleasant afternoon of different food and interesting conversation. The topics touched on several countries in the southern hemisphere, teaching from kindergarten to college level, astronomy, physics, time travel, mushrooms, hallucinogens, church, and Jesus, plus several more when I was in the kitchen. Here is the final menu of what we ate and drank:

Sunday Dinner,  South African Style

Welcome

Wine: The Royal Chenin Blanc

Valley Vineyards, South Africa

First Course

Fish Soup in a Potjie

Yellow Pumpkin Bread

Wine: Goats do Roam, 2014

Fair Vineyards, South Africa

Main Course

Bobotjie

Spiced minced beef pie with egg topping

Yellow Rice with Raisins

Green Bean Salad

Beetroot and Onion Salad

 Wine: The Royal Pinotage Shiraz, 2013

Valley Vineyards, South Africa

Dessert

Melktert

A custard tart with more milk than egg

South Africans celebrate National Milk Tart Day on February 27 each year.

Crème de Menthe Liqueur