Boerewors – variations on a theme

I find boerewors pleasant both hot and cold so I tend to cook more that I can eat at a sitting.

I was raised to believe that it could only be grilled or barbequed/braaied.

However baking/roasting in the oven is easier.

Could I suggest the following?

Bread support.

Place enough slices of bread on a tray under the boerewors to make a bed for the Boerewors and then place the tray in the oven to cook. I cooked the boerewors in the oven at 180deg C until cooked turning halfway through. In more scientific terms, put in the oven at the beginning of “Neighbours”, turn at the beginning of “Home and Away.” and it will be ready to eat at the end of “Home and Away”.  Vary to your own tastes. I like my sausage a little dry. The bread sort of fries in the dripping from the sausage.

Eat with the relish or salad of your choice, I like a puttanesca variant.

Polenta/Pap/Sadza

Using the standard yellow polenta, I have used freshly cooked polenta as a base to cook the boerewors. The polenta sort of roasts. The sausage stays moist and may not brown as easily. Again the polenta will absorb the dripping off of the sausage.

The bread will not receive the Heart Foundation seal of approval.

Comfort food –

Flavours from my youth,

Tonight I had

Peasant Sausage

Tomato compote

White Polenta

That makes it sound more expensive than

Boerewors

Tamatie sous

Pap/Sadza

The sadza, and the folks I grew up with would laught at me, was not as stiff as it should be. Leftover sadza (polenta) was allowed to cool on a tray for polenta chips for tomorrow’s lunch. This idea was sourced from Judy Rodgers’ “the Zuni Cafe cookbook.”

Boerewors is that strange sausage that Australians get used to seeing in places where Southern Africans have settled. 

Notes on the Boerewors

The boerewors is local from Paynes Butchery. I baked it on a scanpan instead of my usual in a cast iron frying pan on the stove top.

I ran low on olive oil so more butter was used on the tomato sauce. All vegetables were purchased at the local markets.

Leftovers

The leftovers were enjoyed over the following 2 days. The Tomato sauce was varied with addition of feta cheese and almonds.

Margaret Bourke-White and the dedication of the Voortrekker monument 1949

Margaret Bourke-White travelled to South Africa and took photographs from 1949 to 1950.

Margaret Bourke-White - three Afrikaans men

Google has just done a deal with Time to allow access to Life archive. I am hoping that some archivist will go through and update the tags. It is obvious this is part of Margaret Bourke-White’s photo essay on the dedication of the Voortrekker monument on 16 December 1949. There are no names of the men in the photo.

Margaret Bourke-White - Afrikaans men with Paul Kruger look-a-like

It is frustrating not knowing the background story. Who was the Paul Kruger look-a-like and was he related to Oom Paul. Who was the old man who insisted on being photographed with powder horn and bullet pouch. The older men in the photograph would have lived through the Boer war and the hard times that followed.

Margaret Bourke-White - Mother and children Voortrekker monument

WHen I started to peruse the images I realised that I was coming to appreciate the “eye” that Margaret Bourke-White had.

Margaret Bourke-White - Boere vroue en man. Farmers wives and man.

Classic Life photo that “tells a story.”

Margaret Bourke-White - Cooking boerewors over a fire.

I have cooked boerwors this way.

Margaret Bourke-White - Behind the scenes staff (this is South Africa)

Margaret missed nothing

Margaret Bourke-White - Riders for Boer republics

This is not the Australian Light Horse but the inspiration for the uniforms of the Light Horse.

These photographs are really a testament to the skill of Margaret. They do convey some of the context in which the dedication of the Voortrekker monument was imbedded. The Afrikaans people had lost the republics to the British Empire, lost women and children in the concentration camps of the Boer war, the poverty of the aftermath of the Boer war, the First World War, the depression and finally were starting their rise as a result of the recovery and boom of the Second World War even though there had been a division in the community over whether to fight for the Germans or the British in that war. The Afrikaans had taken political power in 1948 so this was their moment to shine.