Message Forums

Thanks for the info Petemillis, much appreciated.  rooks, I bought mine from here

 www.biltongstmarcus.co.uk/

We've got a dutch pot (no legs) and have often thought about taking it camping as it's great for stews and slow cooked food. I mainly use it at home for West Indian cooking and I'm very fussy about keeping it a certain way...never hot washed, never scrubbed. My friend is currently living in SA and had her first potjie on the road during the World Cup (on the way to a game). She said everything is done in layers but there's no hard and fast rules on how it's cooked...although tough meat will take the longest. She done one at home in Joburg a few weeks back and said it took around 4 hours before they could start eating, but she kept adding to it so it lasted all day and night.

Sounds fantastic to me!

One of secrets of a good potjie, is first searing your meat over very hot coals. This would give a wonderful smokey flavour.

Meat must be sealed quick and well. Then place it in the bottom of the pot with a bit of stock (do not use any salt yet!).

If you use gas, or hard wood as we do in Africa. Try and get to 80 - 90 C steady heat. LOL..about a big hand full of mopane wood coals would do..you know what I mean?

To help with the cooking proccess, we also put a few coals on the lid. Food for 4 people should take about 1.5 hours

  Hi WHFC,

 I had a holiday in South Africa in November and fell in love with them so much that I brought one back in my hand luggage !! I usually camp on my own so I bought a size one ( also a bit lighter for carrying home ) and its plenty big to feed three people.

 I also brought back some potjie spice mix which is nearly finished now. I loved buying that in the spice shop, we asked the assistant for a potjie mix , she went to a large table covered in buckets of different spices and using a large spoon, she filled a serving sized bowl with various spices,,,, oooh the smell.

 I used it for the first time on New Years day on the barbeque and we made a potjie with beef shin ( the style of cooking is perfect for 'cheaper ' cuts of meat ). I watched carefully when we had potjies in SA, so heres what we did.....

 fry some onion, ginger and garlic

 add the spices and cook briefly

 add the diced( not too small) shin to seal it

 good glug of red wine, then another

 add water and cook for about a hour and a half

 put in new potatoes and carrots, sweet potato, sugar snap peas and baby corn, judging when to add them by how long they take to cook (really whatever takes your fancy)

 I think our coals were too hot because it was more than a simmer and we had to keep topping up with water, we'll keep an eye on that next time.

 I can't wait to cook curry and chilli in it .