Three games, three chances to make a proper occasion of it. Bafana Bafana’s World Cup campaign opened against Mexico on Thursday, 11 June, and if you didn’t throw a party for that one, two more fixtures are waiting: South Africa vs Czechia on Thursday, 18 June at 6 pm, and South Africa vs South Korea on Wednesday, 24 June at the considerably more demanding hour of 3 am. The food for a watch party should be easy to eat standing up or perched on a couch, possible to make in batches before kick-off, and interesting enough to compete with the pre-match commentary.
A loaded snack board
This is the no-fuss centrepiece of any watch party spread. Build it on a large chopping board or tray: boerie bites and cocktail sausages at the centre, surrounded by biltong, dried mango, smoked almonds, a small bowl of chakalaka, crackers and cheese. Add cherry tomatoes for colour and sliced gherkins for bite. People graze through this all match long without it ever running out, and it requires almost no cooking.
Mini boerie sliders
Buy small slider rolls, grill boerewors and slice into patty-sized rounds, and serve with a condiment spread of garlic mayo, tomato salsa, sliced pickled peppers and peri-peri sauce. Set everything out and let guests assemble their own. These take ten minutes to prepare and disappear in five. For a vegetarian version, halloumi rounds grilled the same way work beautifully.
Sweetcorn fritters with a dipping sauce
Mix a simple batter from tinned sweetcorn, flour, egg, spring onion and smoked paprika. Pan-fry in small rounds until golden. Serve with a sauce made from equal parts Greek yoghurt and sweet chilli. These are better than anything you’d order at a restaurant and somehow vanish even faster than the sliders. Make double the batter.
Peri-peri chicken wings
Marinate wings overnight in peri-peri paste, garlic, lemon juice and oil, then roast at high heat until the skin is crisp and charred at the edges. Serve in a pile with extra sauce and a good supply of paper serviettes. If wings aren’t your preference, chicken thighs marinated the same way and roasted whole are just as crowd-pleasing and easier to portion.
The Bafana lemonade
For a festive non-alcoholic option, make a jug of yellow lemonade: fresh lemon juice, sugar syrup, water and a few mint leaves. Serve it alongside sparkling water with slices of lime. The yellow and green colours put the right energy on the table without requiring anyone to explain why.
A note on the 3 am kick-off
The South Korea match demands its own approach. For those committed enough to watch Bafana Bafana at 3am on a winter Wednesday, the food calls for warmth and comfort: toasted sandwiches, a pot of noodles dressed up with leftover chicken and spring onion, or a flask of good soup. The bleary-eyed, mid-winter, deep-of-night watch party is its own kind of occasion, and it deserves to be fed accordingly.
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