Recipe by Jan Braai – The Vegetarian Option
Photographer credit: Matthys van Lill
ALSO SEE: Jan Braai’s Peaches In Port
Ingredients
- For the tomato relish:
- 1 tot olive oil
- 1 onion (chopped)
- 2 bell peppers (any colour, chopped)
- 3 garlic cloves (crushed and chopped)
- 1 tot paprika
- ½ tsp chilli powder
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1 tsp ground coriander
- 1 tsp mixed dried herbs
- 1 tin chopped tomatoes
- 1 tin red kidney beans
- ¼ beer (roughly 80 ml, drink the rest)
- salt and pepper (to taste)
- 300 g Cheddar cheese (grated)
- To serve:
- 1 pack tortilla chips (I use normal triangle-shaped tortilla corn chips, such as Doritos)
- 2 mielies
- 2 avocados (out of the skin and chopped into blocks)
- sour cream
- fresh coriander
Instructions
1. Place your potjie on the fire and heat the oil, add the onion and peppers, and cook until soft. Add the garlic, paprika, chilli powder, cumin, ground coriander and dried herbs, and cook for another minute.
2. Add the tomatoes, beans, and beer and let this simmer with the lid on for about 15 minutes. Remove the lid and continue to simmer so that the sauce can reduce until it is thick. Regularly stir and scrape along the bottom of the potjie to ensure the sauce doesn’t burn.
3. Add the grated cheese, place the lid on the potjie and let this melt for a few minutes.
4. While you are preparing the relish in the potjie, also braai the mielies on a grid over hot coals, turning them often and letting the kernels char a bit. Time step 3 and 4 to be finished at the same time. When the mielies are done, after about 15 minutes, remove from the fire and then use a sharp knife to cut off all the kernels. Mielies straight off the fire are quite hot so hold them with gloves or tongs.
5. Serve the meal by using a big spoon to scrape the tomato relish to one side of the potjie and then placing the chips in the space that you formed. Now artfully add the avocado, sour cream and mielies, and then garnish with fresh coriander.
