Anyone make sosaties lately?

Sosaties - the real South African alternative to kebabs.

It's been years since I've had them: MoCool '00, to be exact. The venue was Joel 'n Sally's place, and the theme was "Below the Belt" - wines from the southern hemisphere. There were some awfully good sosaties at that picnic, and I've had cravings for them ever since.

Well, finally I decided to make some, and have been browsing a number of recipes, e.g. this one.

The one modification that I'm adamant on is to not add the full amount of sugar that they call for to the marinade if I'm already going to be adding apricot jam. I don't like sweet meat - vinegar-for-balance notwithstanding.

To pair with the sosaties, I have selected a really good SA Chenin Blanc. I somehow think that a good Steen is the ideal wine with sosaties.

Anyone else have any sosatie tales to tell?

[Robin Garr]

I always thought "making sosaties" was the South African term for "playing doctor" ...

Woops! I never did go to SA Slang 101, so ...

[Jenise]

Woops! I never did go to SA Slang 101, so ...

Forget slang, Paul. What the world really wants to know is, did you ever play doctor?

Jenise, medicine was never a field that I seriously contemplated getting into. Truth be told, I've always seen a big parallel between surgeons and mechanics, the big difference being, of course, that surgeons are working on live specimens (i.e. people), whereas if a mechanic screws up (pun not intended, but it kind of fits - oops, another pun), he has a chance to get another go at it. Well, unless we're talking about airline mechanics, in which case they better get it right, 'cause you can't just pull over and park a jet anywhere! So to make a long story short, I never did seriously think about being a doctor when I was young.

Woops! I never did go to SA Slang 101, so ...

Forget slang, Paul. What the world really wants to know is, did you ever play doctor?

The sound you hear is that line whizzing overhead.

I thought Sosatie was a Jethro Tull song, from "Benefit." Lovely acoustic guitar work.

We clearly need to get our South African friends over here. It seems that everyone thinks that sosaties are everything but what they really are!

[Jenise]

Stu said:

The sound you hear is that line whizzing overhead.

Worse: I think it's boomerang shaped and is about to bite me.

Paul, back to your recipe: don't leave out the sugar. There's only 1 tblsp of apricot jam in there, which is so minor compared to the other ingredients it's a Why Bother. Whereas the brown sugar quantity of 6 tblsp is in line with the other quantities, and will add not only a slightly sweet caramel flavor that will balance the vinegar (remember, sweet AND sour), it will help the sosaties brown better on the grill.

Paul, back to your recipe: don't leave out the sugar. There's only 1 tblsp of apricot jam in there, which is so minor compared to the other ingredients it's a Why Bother. Whereas the brown sugar quantity of 6 tblsp is in line with the other quantities, and will add not only a slightly sweet caramel flavor that will balance the vinegar (remember, sweet AND sour), it will help the sosaties brown better on the grill.

Jenise, maybe you're right. It's my typical aversion to sugar coming up again. It's also why I decided to pick a nice citrusy Chenin to go with the sosaties - I think it should pair really well.

It's been a while since I've had a chance to use cumin. I have to say that it took me a while to warm up to - it had this strange, almost otherworldly smell to it. I later learned that most curry powders I've bought have had cumin in them anyway, and since I really like curry (especially goat curry), the transition over to cumin (which I bought recently) hasn't been so stark.

But it might have been the butcher I used to buy meat from a long time ago who turned me off cumin. He once made vague allusions to the challenges of hygeine in his village back in the old country and said that cumin reminded him of that!

Well, I made the sweet-'n-sour-marinade sosaties yesterday and they were not to my expectations. Far too sweet, and not nearly spicy enough.

I wish that our friend Joel were reading this because I would love to know how they made those awesome sosaties back at MoCool '00. They were strongly spiced with excellent curry, and to my recollection, were spicy, not sweet. And that's exactly how I'd love to try them.

What I might do next time is to just make a curry/cornflour rub and rub the meat with that a day before, skipping the apricot jam and dried apricots, and putting green pepper wedges in their place.

You can make sosaties by skewering lamb, onion, dried apricots etc., but using a non-sweet marinade principally composed of curry. Quite nice if, as you say, they aren't done sweet.

Forget the jam!

Yup! I can take jam on toast, but never again on my sosaties.