Chakalaka is a great South African dish. Just ask any South Africans and they'll all agree. But what is it ? Just ask any South Africans and they'll all disagree. Well I suppose we've at least got consensus on some things so let's start there. It's spicy, it's vegetarian, it's the taste of Africa, it's got onions, tomatoes and peppers in it and after that everybody's got their own ideas. That's not necessarily a bad thing but I suppose it would be nice if we knew what it was, if only to try to share it with others.
We can firm things up just a little if we think of it as a side dish although there are some who will throw their arms up in the air and declare that it's more of a sauce than a side dish. So let's call it a wet side dish. It's often served with mielie pap, which is the standard starch eaten on a daily basis by much of our population so I suppose it serves a purpose similar to a sauce. It's also served with bread, samp ( another maize dish ) and stews. Aha, so if it's served with stews then surely it's not a sauce, it's a vegetable accompaniment ? Possibly but what about when it pops up alongside grilled meats ? - vegetable accompaniment or spicy relish ? Sorry did I mention that it can be served hot or cold ?
Well if it's cold then it must be a salad and that's probably the origin of the dish in the first place. With it's combination of spices, tomatoes, peppers and vegetables it's very likely that it is a deviation on some salad or achar of Indian or Malay origin which just tasted so good that it became the ketchup of Africa. Many variations also include tinned baked beans so I reckon it was prepared by labourers working in the goldmines as a salad originally but tossed into the pan with whatever was available at the time and then poured over mielie pap, potatoes or bread. Black workers adopted it as a spicy, easy to prepare dish and took it back to their villages with them when they went on leave. The rest as they say is history....we've all been making it ever since to serve at our braais but like all truly great dishes we each have a slightly different recipe handed down through the family or wrested at knifepoint from someone who made the best Chakalaka this side of the Limpopo. Ingredients include onions, tomatoes, green peppers, carrots, cabbage, baked beans, curry powder, peri peri, chilli, garlic, ginger, fresh coriander.....the list goes on and on like any self respecting barbeque sauce.
I suppose that inviting people over to your fire is a very personal thing for the modern caveman and so on reflection maybe it's not that important that we have a structured recipe, maybe it's more important that your chakalaka is an individual thing. However if you need a starting point then try this :
Chakalaka
250 ml canola oil
30 g fresh chopped ginger
30 g fresh chopped garlic
20 g chopped chillis
200 g chopped onion
500 g tomatoes roughly chopped
100 g green pepper roughly chopped
100 g red pepper roughly chopped
50 g leaf masala
200 g grated carrot
450 g baked beans
10 g fresh coriander
Fry ginger,garlic,chillis,onions in the oil. Add the leaf masala or curry powder of your choice. Add the tomatoes and cook for 10 mins. Add peppers and carrots and cook for 10 minutes. Add baked beans and cook for 5 mins. Remove from heat and add coriander. Check seasoning. Serve with whatever you want, hot or cold.
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11 comments:
Hey Brian,
I was just looking up Chakalaka recipes on google and came across your site. What a great write up. I was in SA for three months last year visiting a bunch of mates right up the garden route, then drove with some mates from durban up through Mozambique & Zim to Lake Kariba & Zambia. We took a whole trailer load of food (literally) cooking poikes every night (spelling?) with pap and soise (again, spelling?) every night around a fire on the journey which took 3 months. Was trying to recreate the spirit with a cous cous recipe and chakalaka (i'm a kiwi)
Didn't quite manage it with the Chakalaka but you're write up brought it all back.
Melanie
Your article is good but please do not make CHakalaka out to be South African. It is African. It has its origens in the black ghettos of Johannesburg Central and SOWETO. It is not South African but African. It is part of black cuisine and will not be found in many european orientated houses. The marketing strategy of KOO who makes the majority of the variants is also purely black market orientated.
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Chakalaka
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Chakalaka is a spicy African vegetable relish traditionally served with bread, pap, samp, stews or curries. To balance its fiery flavour, it is sometimes served with amasi (thick sour milk). Chakalaka is said to have originated in the townships of Johannesburg.
Thanks for the chakalaka recipe. Lived in South Africa for three years, and I've now run out of the packets of Knorr chakalaka seasoning I smuggled back in my bags...it helps a lot having someone write down what the constituent spices are. The Shona lady I learned to make it from insisted simply that as long as it had "chakalaka spice" in it, it was chakalaka.
Because one of my Shona mates taught me how to make it, adding to my knowledge of Venda and Zulu variants, I'd agree with anonymous's point that it's not just South African, but African. (Maybe southern African?)
Last I checked, Johannesburg was in fact IN South Africa. So if we accept that it was a dish developed by black mineworkers, in Johannesburg and Soweto, why is it such a big problem calling it South African?? It's not as if it was rooted deep in the cuisine of an ancient African culture - not with tinned baked beans, anyway!! I think Southern African is about right an is as far as this can logically be taken.
This debate reminds me of when, in the 1980s, the then independent homeland of Transkei brought out stamps featuring "birds of the Transkei" and featured e.g. a bokmakierie. As if the bokmakieries had suddenly assumed a nationality and were no longer birds of South Africa, but of the Transkei!
For the Kiwis out there, you can buy Koo Chakalaka from the South African Shop in Albany, Auckland. It is near Burger Fuel. I left South Africa in 1998 and had not come across Chakalaka while there. I bought some yesterday and can confirm that it is the "taste of South Africa" and I would call it an African or Sowetan dish. It is a taste that I have missed and is exactly like the taste of the "sauce and pap" dishes sold on the pavements of Johannesburg and as cooked and sold outside of the factories in the industrial areas. This really brings back memories and will now be a regular purchase.
Of course Chakalaka is South African. If you wanna stretch it, call it southern African, as many southern Africans did in fact live and work in South Africa. But I see no reason why it should be labelled African, unless it's the old, mistaken concept of Africa as a country.
Chakalaka is South African, straight out of Gauteng, and eaten by all Africans, white, black, coloured Africans, in fact Africans of all races. So too suggest that i am not african because i am white and that chakalaka is therefore not my type of food is rascist and doesnt belong in our rainbow nation. Chakalaka forever.
Hi Brian...as I was searching the web for Chakala recipes I luckily founf yours, tried it and was so much reminded of my time in South Africa (I spent a year there)!! We had samp&beans with it and butternut on the side. Incredible! Thanks so much!
Only thing is that I don't know what "leaf masala" is (an couldn't find a German translation to it) so I just used a blend of spices calles Garam Masala (sold by an African Store here in Cologne).
Well....many many thanks again and be blessed!
Anna
Why chakalaka is such a big deal? If you dot like it you don so what. Why food have to be labeled as black and white food? Food is food. Black people eat anything, they have no black and white food.
The only thing African about chakalaka as discussed on this page is the name. I laugh at the ingredients which, at the time when chakalaka was being made by its originators (miners and construction workers) were unknown, not available, not affordable even to most white households at the time. I grew up on a mine (to the smell and taste of chakalaka) and was only introduced to expensive, "posh" vegetables like green pepper long after I left school. Other ingredients are pure cape cuisine. No harm in developing a recipe and marketing it, I suppose, but it does make me laugh.
Dear Brian,
You wonder about the origins of chakalaka. It started as a quick, cheap and convenient lunch that workers could prepare for themselves.
Construction workers would gather around a drum fire (drum with holes made in the side for air). There would be a pot of porridge, stiff enough to be moulded like clay. The unmistakable, mouthwatering aroma comes from the scorched bits around the side of the pot. A handful of these toasted crusts is something we, as children, would fight over. But the real meal is about moulding a piece of stiff porridge into a longish shape and dipping it into the adjacent pot of chakalaka. It was a convenient way of eating a quick lunch on a construction site without the hassle of plates and cutlery. Everyone could simultaneously eat from these two pots, using the moulded porridge to dip into the chakalaka, while sanding around the fire for warmth. The chakalaka did not contain green or red peppers (even today very expensive). Bell peppers have only recently, with modern methods of farming and rapid refrigerated transport become readily available in Gauteng. They were unknown to ordinary, average people in Gauteng when I grew up. Chakalaka was the mouthwatering aroma of frying onions and tomatoes, with maybe some curry powder added. It was never a Mediterranean ratatouille with expensive vegetables and exotic spices. That is a recent development.
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