Years ago a family friend introduced me to slowly roasted lamb knuckles – a cheap and delicious family meal. Then suddenly this cut became popular and very expensive – to properly enjoy you need a lot of meat. So I am trying the same thing using beef potjie meat.
Beef potjie meat are the offcuts, chunky bits of meat with some bone and some fat. It is cheap, so you can make a lot – and the finished dish will disappear very quickly.
You brown the pieces in a casserole on the stovetop, add aromatic veggies and then slow roast for a long time. You end up with caramelised meat in a dark, jammy vegetable mixture. A simple meal, but wonderful on a cold evening.
Ingredients – five people
1.6kg of beef potjiekos meat
Salt and pepper
1 Head of garlic cut though in half
2 Chillies roughly chopped
Onion, carrots and celery, roughly chopped
Splash of balsamic vinegar
Glug of olive oil
A glass of red wine, plus some to add to the dish
Robust herbs – I used fresh rosemary and bay leaves from the garden
500g of baby potatoes
Method
Season the meat and brown in batches using a bit of olive oil. I found that even with some visible fat, it was still too dry to render enough fat to fry in.
Add all the meat back into the casserole, stir though the veggies and herbs, add the balsamic and wine, close the lid and roast in a 160°C for around 3 hours, giving it a shake every hour or so. Add the potatoes after two hours and add some more wine if it is too dry. This is, however, a dryish braise, not a stew. After three hours increase the oven to 200°C and roast with the lid off to caramelise everything. Serve with rice or crusty bread.