Like so many South African recipes, this main meal is derived from many cultures. The peri-peri spatchcock chicken has sort of Mozambique overtones. The fried rice is not strictly African but might have influences of the Cape Malay cuisine of Cape Town.
I have combined the two dishes to make the main meal because they complement one another so well.
By the way..the three sirloin steaks tucked around the edge of the spatchcock on the grill was for a guest that preferred beef! They have nothing to do with this recipe and were merely basted with olive oil and fresh rosemary Italian style.

Here is a very elegant meal that can be made for a special occasion. It is something a bit beyond the normal Sunday Roast and you will definitely get lots of "Wows" because it looks good, is meltingly tender, and tastes incredible!

Buy the very best Beef you can afford. For this recipe, I recommend a large whole rump. I made the pictured rolled roast with a 4kg prime rump. Always buy meat with white fat and plenty of it. It will melt off during roasting and you can trim any off that you don't want.

You will need:
3 to 4 kg whole rump
250 grams of sliced button mushrooms. (slice to keep the mushroom profile)
250 grams chopped bacon
2 cups cooked and drained chopped swiss chard or spinach.
150ml cream
A cup of chopped leeks or onion. (Leeks make for something a little interesting)
about 20 pieces of garlic chopped.
Fresh rosemary sprigs
Fresh thyme or dried.
Two teaspoons ground black pepper.
Some cotton string

Start by cutting the roast into a long flat slab. I do that by cutting ALONG the grain, NOT across it. Cut down about an inch and then keep cutting to make an unrolled roast. The best way I can describe this is to think of a swiss roll cake.
You are going to put the spinach/bacon stuffing in instead of Jam!

Start by frying the bacon, leeks, and mushrooms together. Add the spinach and cream and reduce it until there is almost no liquid.  Be careful not to burn it. Use a thick bottom pan or pot and very low heat and be patient. You can also add a little flour paste to thicken, but be careful not to mush up the texture.

Finally un-roll your Beef Rump on a flat surface. Spread the filling over it evenly. sprinkle a little dried thyme and a few sprigs of Rosemary on. Sprinkle the raw garlic on. Add any other seasoning that you like at this time like the black pepper. I always avoid putting salt in during any cooking because it tends to draw out juices. Keep the filling a little back from the end of the roll otherwise, it squishes out when you roll and tie it.

Roll the rump back up and secure it with 3 or 4 cotton strings.

Place it in a large roasting dish, fat uppermost, and roast it for 3 hours at 200C (390F)  Baste with the juices every 30 minutes. If it looks like it is drying out (depends on the grade of beef) cover just the top of the meat with a square of foil. In the last hour add your roast veg. I used peeled and quartered Beetroot, large whole carrots, and butternut.
Finally, make your gravy out of the pan juices a cup of semi-sweet wine (add a little sugar or syrup if using a dry wine) and cornflour. Season and taste your gravy...it is a key to a perfect roast!

Over the last couple of months, I have prepared and perfected a kebab recipe to my liking.  Shish kebab is the Armenian word for "skewer," It is a dish consisting of meat threaded on a skewer and grilled. Any kind of meat may be used; cubes of fruit or vegetables are often threaded on the spit as well. Typical vegetables include tomato, bell pepper, onions, and mushrooms.
In Southern Africa, they are often made using pork, beef, lamb, and chicken. Onion slices, bell pepper, pineapple, and mushrooms are often added to the skewer. I love a mixture of vegetables and meat with something sweet also added. On different occasions have used plum slices, peach slices, and pineapple.
 Photo courtesy Jenn whos photo was better than mine and whose excellent recipe is here
I always cook Shish Kebabs over wood coals, but of course, it can be done over charcoal, gas, or in the oven. Try and just "catch" the caramel sauce so that you get a very slight charring.

The marinade is quite important and there are many variations. Here is a recipe that works really well and I recently prepared for my family visiting from New Zealand and Zimbabwe.

Serves 6 with plenty of left-overs

Ingredients

1kg pork fillet, leg chops, shoulder, or whatever cut is cheap. I used leg chops. Cut into matchbox size chunks.
1 kg of beef rump steak. You can also use ribeye or fillet. Cut into matchbox size chunks.
3 onions cut in half lengthways and separated into flakes. Then spend a bit of time trimming the flakes to roughly round shapes, sort of matchbox size.
1 large bell pepper also cut to round matchbox sizes
20 button mushrooms, stalks removed or trimmed flush
(by the way, keep all the above trimmings in the fridge for a soup, stew, or similar dish)
Pineapple slices cut into suitable matchbox size rounds. I use fresh pineapple if available. Try peach halves if you can get them, either canned or fresh.

marinade ingredients

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 tablespoons tomato puree concentrate.
half cup good red wine. Cabernet or Pinotage or a Claret
half cup brown sugar or preferably honey.
about 2 tablespoons grated fresh garlic
about 2 tablespoons grated fresh ginger
3 chilies chopped finely
Pinch of ground cloves.
1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh rosemary.
2 teaspoons salt.

Method

Mix the marinade ingredients well making sure all the sugar is dissolved. Put the meat cubes into the marinade and then toss them every hour or so for a whole day. (Start this in the morning if you are going to barbeque in the evening)

Starting with meat alternately skewer pork, pineapple, beef, onion, mushroom, pork, pepper, etc. Obviously, this order is entirely up to your taste, but as a general guide, pork is best next to the sweet pineapple or other fruit and beef next to savory onion or pepper.
I then pile all the shish kebabs up on a dish and pour the marinade over them a few times.

Put the marinade into a small saucepan and add a quarter cup of good olive oil. (this will prevent the meat from drying out during cooking) make a roux of one heaped teaspoon of flour mixed with a little water and add stir it into the sauce. Bring to the boil, stirring constantly, and reduce to a thick sauce. This what you baste onto the shish kebabs while cooking. If you don't have a basting brush, GET ONE! It is invaluable for so many types of cooking. After trying many I have found a 2-inch pure bristle paintbrush works best.


Next. Get cooking and basting. Turn the skewers once or twice and try and end up slightly burning some tips and edges of the meat for flavor.
 I served these with sweetcorn boiled and tumbled in butter, cracked black pepper, and a teaspoon of lemon zest.

photo credit Emily of food porn

In the last week we have enjoyed incredible South African Lamb. It has to be some of the most flavorsome and meltingly tender lamb available in the world! I think the only comparable lamb is found in countries like Greece and Turkey where the animals get to graze a lot of natural and aromatic herbs like wild sage.
My wife Angie, cooked such a simple, delicious meal of lamb chops last night, that I am inspired to record it here, as well as the barbecued version I did over the last weekend.

photo credits thanks to cavegirldish.com and huffingtonpost.com
All she did was place them in the oven, close under the grill for 30 minutes. I detected a dash of freshly ground black pepper. She served it with Mashed Butternut squash and fried potato cubes and it was really awesome. It humbled me a little because it reminded me that sometimes we tend to "overwork" our herbs and flavors.
With the same batch of Lamb Loin Chops, I put together a barbecue, or braai as we call it here in Southern Africa.
Mt lamb chops were sprinkled with chopped rosemary, freshly ground black pepper and a sprinkling of balsamic vinegar. This was then braaied over medium coals (strictly no flame) for about 10 minutes each side. They were INCREDIBLE! We ate them by the fireside with freshly roasted sweetcorn. Just that.

This is how they are done in my region. They are often braaied (barbequed) but I am going to outline the oven method because so many of the readers of this blog live in interesting places but have no place to barbeque.
Here in South Africa, the piece of belly pork or skirt below the ribs is often cut into rashers about a cm thick. Any butcher will be able to do this for you. Here we buy them pre-cut from all good supermarkets such as Spar and Pick n' Pay.
A kilo of rashers is enough for 5 fussy eaters (those that strip off the fatty bits and the rinds!!) Rather cook more. They keep well and if you have a family of teenagers they will be gone from the fridge by the next day.
Assemble as many of the following ingredients as possible:
thumb-size piece ginger grated.
4 segments garlic, grated or chopped finely
heaped tablespoon chopped thyme or teaspoon of dried.
Same of basil
half cup of sweet red wine.
Grated zest and squeeze one lemon.
2 tablespoons honey or brown sugar. Honey is the nicest.
2 chopped chili (can be omitted for those who don't like)
Breadcrumbs (optional but you will see why further down)
Method:
mix all the ingredients and marinade the rashers in this mixture. Overnight is best but 2 or 3 hours is also ok.

Sprinkle a layer of breadcrumbs in a large oven baking pan.
Lay the rashers on this and try to fit as many in as you can. Otherwise use a second pan.
Sprinkle a thin layer of breadcrumbs over the rashers.
Now pour what's left of the marinade over the rashers, making sure you wet all the breadcrumbs. If you think you will be short of marinade add a little more wine.
What happens is the breadcrumbs trap the flavors and sauce next to the meat. You will never have dry rashers inside like this.
Now put in a medium to low oven for up to an hour. Baste the rashers every so often. The sauce should reduce until you are left with a sticky residue. Roll the meat in that and serve.

A very good Italian friend Vito, inspired me a lot in perfecting this method of cooking chicken. He was a natural braaimaster! It is all about low heat and turn, turn, turn. It must not burn. He consistently braaied perfect chicken. Tender, cooked right through and not burnt. It took a lot of hard work though! My way you dont have to turn turn.
Start off with a raw chicken. You can buy one ready spatched but thats for woosies! Put the chicken on a board on its breast. Sharp knife or better still kitchen scissors and a firm hand start the cut like this:


Then pull it apart and press it open. Use a sharp knife to cut down the centre, inside,  at the back of the breast.  Not right through-just to crack through the bone and cartilage. This is to help it flatten. Not many people know this, but I steal with my eyes and once watched a butcher doing it! You can also insert a skewer as you see in the pic below. This keeps it all nice and flat.
Then any mixture of FRESH herbs you like. Fresh basil, garlic, a little rosemary, all chopped fine and mixed with a little mayonnaise, yoghurt, olive oil or all 3 if you feel like it. Go mad. Experiment. It eont be bad I promise. I always put as many fresh chillies as I think I can get past my wife! Toss it all in a large bag and leave it in the fridge for as long as possible.

Then....GET THE HEAT RIGHT. Get your braai coals well burnt. Should be plenty of them so the heat lasts. Test it by holding your habd over the heat. You should be able to do about 2 to 3 seconds.

Place opened side down on the grill. Now for the secret to tender, succulent braaied chicken! Cover the chicken with silver foil! Roll the edges or crumple them to form a stiff edge so you can lift the foil off and on often for checking and basting.


If it is too hot, and its causing too much flare ups then simply take it all off the braai, have another glass of wine and wait 20 mins. Do not be impatient. Heat is everything. After cooking 20 minutes turn it over skin side down and cook for another 20 min. A total of 45 min should be good. If it looks like its burning then your fire is too hot. Its all about temperature.
Here it is.....

An aged Italian gentleman inspired this...I was doing some work for him at his holiday home on the coast in the East Cape, and at the end of a long day as the sun dropped over the horizon,  he pulled out a brown paper packet from his car containing some aged rump steaks, and promised me a special treat....

 The basic ingredients consisted of a strong olive oil, fresh ground black pepper, rosemary sprigs picked off the shrub next to the braai/barbeque and 6 or 7 pieces of garlic. These he smashed in their skins and added to the bowl of steak rosemary and olive oil. He also bashed the rosemary a bit before putting it into the bowl. All this was tossed and left for an hour whilst some hot coals burnt down from some acacia hardwood.

The result was the finest steaks I have ever eaten. So simple. The key is to let either the garlic or the rosemary dominate the flavours. That means put in less of the one. He used more rosemary, and not only whipped the braai grid with a rosemary branchlet but also threw a few leaves onto the hot coals whilst he was grilling the steaks. This has got to be eaten rare or medium. If you like it grey and well done just go and chuck a frozen burger patty in the microwave! You will probably enjoy it more.
A bit of explanation...Smashing the garlic and leaving it in the skin, traps the volatile oils so not all of it escapes during the cooking. This is the same reason that you add a very little raw garlic to garlic dishes at the end of cooking. Secondly, bashing the rosemary releases some oils and makes them availabe to infuse.

In Southern Africa we buy them from Spar, Shoprite, Pick n Pay supermarkets and they look like this...
 The rib above is enough for 2 or 3 servings...South African men size servings that is! Normal people...well I guess 4 could eat that. Anyway...I am going to cook 2 racks, becoz my family are hogs themselves.

So many people ask and wonder what is the great secret to those melt in the mouth spare ribs you can get at the Spur and Steers franchise restaurants..
The answer is simple. No matter what they say, the ribs are all PRE COOKED. Yup, that all. Add the racks to a large pot of water and simmer for 35 minutes. Dont overcook or else the bone falls out. Remove carefully from the pot and drain. This is also a great way to remove a lot of the fat which everyone say is SO BADASS FOR YOU. So this is health food hey?? Right!! Lets go wild.

Ingredients

2 rack of ribs
Tons of garlic..(like a whole clove. Just smack it with a mallet; its going to be put into the pre-boiling water)
2 tblspns grated fresh garlic
Small sprig of rosemary...(going into the pre-boil water also)
3 large fresh chillies chopped fine. Remove the seeds if you got wimps who dont like hot stuff.
Half Cup of honey
Half cup red wine
good dash of balsamic vinegar
5 or 6 Finely chopped spring onions with the green leaves.

Method

Lay the preboiled ribs out on a baking tray or in silver foil with the edges turned up to catch the drips.
Mix all the ingredients together into a cup along with another cup of the pre-boil liquor. Baste the ribs with a brush and continue to do so every 10 minutes or so for another hour whilst yo roast them in the oven on medium heat.
The secret to success, as always, is attention to detail....fussing over them, basting them, keeping them moist. DONT let them dry out! If they do...cover with silver foil and add some liquor. Turn the heat down.
They should end up looking like this.......