Travel the world's barbecue trail and youll find meat on a stick almost everywhere. South Africa's version goes by the Afrikaans name sosatie. Like all good Cape Malay meat dishes, fruit and curry are never far offthe former (usually apricots) interspersed with the meat on the skewers, the latter used to flavor the marinade and sauce. "Cape Malay," by the way, refers to the descendants of Indonesian and Malaysian slaves and indentured servants brought to Cape Town to work in farming. "There is perhaps no other single dish that can be regarded as more genuinely Afrikaans than sosaties," wrote South African poet and food writer C. Louis Leipoldt. Writing in the 1940s, Leipoldt was to Afrikaans food what James Beard was to our own. Like all great food writers, Leipoldt dispensed not only recipes but the wisdom gleaned from considering cooking a manifestation of culture. The following sosaties are based on Leipoldt's.
This classic 15-minute sauce is your secret weapon for homemade mac and cheese, chowder, lasagna, and more.
Turn humble onions into this thrifty yet luxe pasta dinner.
Round out these autumn greens with tart pomegranate seeds, crunchy pepitas, and a shower of Parmesan.
The silky French vanilla sauce that goes with everything.
Caramelized onions, melty Gruyère, and a deeply savory broth deliver the kind of comfort that doesn’t need improving.
An extra-silky filling (no water bath needed!) and a smooth sour cream topping make this the ultimate cheesecake.
This pasta has some really big energy about it. It’s so extra, it’s the type of thing you should be eating in your bikini while drinking a magnum of rosé, not in Hebden Bridge (or wherever you live), but on a beach on Mykonos.
Crispy tots topped with savory-sweet sauce, mayonnaise, furikake, scallion, and katsuobushi.