The name is a bit of a misnomer. It should be Cape Malay sweet potato curry with carrots, potatoes and a myriad of other delicious ingredients. A vegetarian dish of complex, sweet 'n sour flavours that heartily satisfy, how I learned this recipe is as interesting as the dish itself.
No meat 'n potatoes
This is one comes with a story. So, bear with me. Or, simply scroll down to the cooking part.
I recently cooked this dish in Broadstairs. My friend Jemima was returning with her family from Australia. There had been a freezer disaster in her absence—don't ask—and my friend Brian, who had been cat sitting while the family were away, and I were eager that when they arrived home, there would be something appetising that could be easily reheated after that gruelling flight.
Working largely with what was available in the kitchen, I cooked this dish on a kind of autopilot—it was just in the preprogrammed recipes in my brain. Doing so was a kind of Proustian experience as the whole memory of how I came to know it flooded back. So, I made a point on putting it on my list of recipes to share.
I didn't learn this recipe in Cape Town. Through a weird series of coincidences—the kind that underscored the veracity of Pedro Almodóvar's cinema when it burst onto the international scene precisely because life is full of incredible coincidences, is full of unlikely intersections—I learned it from a Capetonian in London.
Way back in the mists of time, in the dying days of the 80s, I met a woman called Nicolette when we were both attending an evening course on African cinema delivered by the amazing Jim Pines. Nicolette and I got to know each other and, in the course of that process, I got to know about her mother Violet, who came from Cape Town. One thing led to another, and I was invited by Violet to dinner at her home because she was curious to see what a veggie (I still was back then) with some experience of South African cuisine would make of her Cape Malay cooking.
It was one of those meetings that stay with you for the rest of your life. Violet and I hit it off immediately, to the point that I was deeply conscious of Nicolette and her Welsh dad Gareth appearing slightly alarmed that soon Violet and I were howling at her jokes in a very Capetonian Afrikaans in her kitchen. Initially I tried to explain the connotations of "bergie wyn"—her critique of the wine her husband had brought back from the supermarket. Their eyes just got bigger and bigger. I soon gave up.
Violet had arrived in London at the end of the 1960s. Newly married, she and her husband, an ANC activist, had had to flee the Apartheid regime's increasingly brutal suppression of political opposition. Sadly, he died very young. A few years later, Violet, while training as a maths teacher, met and later married Gareth, an architect, and they built their new life together in London. Nicolette, their only child, was their pride and joy.
This dish was the first that Violet cooked for me—and generously taught me the recipe. She had grown up in Cape Town's District Six, an area synonymous with Cape Malay (aka"Cape Coloured"culture i.e. the descendant communities of the slaves originally brought to the Cape by the Dutch from Indonesia) until the Apartheid regime forcibly displaced thousands of people to enforce it as a "whites only" inner-city suburb.
According to Violet, this was a typical dish of her childhood in Cape Town growing up in a large family, sometimes cooked with chicken, but just as often with only vegetables when money was tight. The version I cooked in Broadstairs used celeriac—what was in the kitchen—but this is the more traditional version that uses sweet potatoes. According to Violet, kohlrabi was another common alternative to sweet potatoes. Brought to the Cape by early Dutch or French Huguenot settlers, it grows well in the local climate.
I lost touch with Nicolette after she married and moved to Vancouver. But, I remained in on-and-off contact with Violet until she sadly passed away in the mid-noughties. When she and Gareth retired to Wales, I loved visiting them. Who could resist the promise of the local landscape? "Dis soos Zoeloeland. Maar leliker," Violet would say. "It's like Zululand. But uglier."
Gareth and his mates would sip beer in the garden outside the kitchen door during the summers when Violet and I cooked—I realise now that this is not her only recipe I need to share—while they made lots of jokes about "rubbish South Africans"; the ones who knew nothing about rugby. But Violet and I would always have the last laugh. When it got to barbecue season, Wales produced the most succulent lamb, but only a woman from Cape Town could cook lamb sosaties on a braai that would shut them up with their rugby talk.
Tastes like chicken
This recipe uses chicken stock; an old Cape Malay hack when cooking for a large family when poultry or meat might not be within the week's food budget, perhaps timely in these "cost of living crisis" times. Of course, you can cook it with vegetable stock instead, as I did in Broadstairs.
The other stuff
Baked beans feature in this dish. It's not incidental. That almost "industrial" tomato sauce in typical supermarket baked beans is important in how this dish's flavours are created and its thickening. Sure, you can go all posh and substitute it with white beans. But, you'll be murdering the spirit of the dish. This is, at heart, a delicious dish of humble ingredients. The baked beans also suggest an influence of African dishes like chakalaka.
While there is very little fat in this dish, it is fairly "carb heavy"; a hearty dish for those who needed the energy to work on the docks, make long trips from farms to markets or do any of the other tiring jobs that dishes such as these nourished those undertaking them.
In keeping with this "carb frenzy", it is often traditionally served with bread—usually terrifyingly white bread that would make any yummy mummy shudder— or roti. I'm doing it here with its most common accompaniment: yellow rice with raisins. Remember that in the wine growing regions of the Cape, raisins are not "exotic" or expensive, but almost considered "leftovers". Here, mango chutney is not served as a condiment, but is used in the cooking process itself.
Similarly, while I'm using tinned chopped tomatoes here, it's more common in South Africa to use diced (skin-on) fresh tomatoes, which take a slightly longer cooking time. Your call.
And, though I'm here cooking it with lime—which is more in keeping with the food traditions the Malay slaves of the Dutch brought to Cape Town—according to Violet, it's more traditionally cooked with lemons. This makes complete sense. Lemons were grown in the Cape since the 17th century and, according to those old apocryphal tales, after the British claimed the Cape at the end of the 18th century, English ladies accompanying their officer husbands to postings looked down on limes: they were scurvy preventatives for grubby sailors. The refined English ladies felt lemons far more sophisticated. In a trickle-down effect, the household servants followed their fashionable lead: limes were out; lemons were in.
The skins of the limes—or lemons—are cooked into this curry. You can remove them once cooked if you prefer, but you can also eat them. Personally, you'll have to gnaw them from my bloody knuckles before I give up the delicacy of savouring these slow-stewed citrus skins. According to Violet, they were also commonly taken out of the pot at the end of cooking, "dusted down", diced, and added to already open jars of achar or pickle.
I would describe this as a mild-to-medium curry. If you want to dial back the spice, the easiest way is to reduce the number of green chillies, though it really isn't that hot. Conversely, add more if you really like curry with a kick,
Sambal not shamble
While sambals are a regular feature of almost all Cape Malay dishes, I'm restricting it to one: the dish does not need much "dressing". In this particular case, I'm going for one of the more particular ones. Again, the raw hot green chilli does give this one a fair "kick". If you don't want that, simply leave the chillies out. And, if this particular sambal is a bit too left field for your palate, you can always go for a classic condiment, such as fruit chutney.
The yellow rice here uses a little golden caster sugar. I'm listing it as "optional". I don't usually add it; but not to say that you shouldn't. This idiosyncratic use of sugar is not unusual in Cape Malay carb side dishes. I'd be lying if I said you wouldn't notice the difference. Sure, the rice is just fine without it. But, when it's included, that "sweet 'n sour" aspect of this dish is really heightened. There is something delectably bitter deep within this curry: the combination of the generous use of cardamom pods that becomes even more amplified if you opt for lime as opposed to lemon. When that meets a barely imperceptible sweetness in the rice with its raisins brimming in fructose, the combination is utterly magic.
This dish feeds 2 to 3 diners. You do the maths to make it otherwise.
Shopping list
For the Cape Malay sweet potato curry
Approx. 4 tbspns sunflower oil (or peanut or vegetable oil)
2 or 3 large sweet potatoes; peeled and cut into fairly large pieces
3 or 4 large carrots; peeled and thickly sliced
6 or 7 baby potatoes; skin-on, scrubbed and halved or cut into pieces
1 tangy green apple (Granny Smith, or the like); grated, skin-on
2 medium onions (red or brown); cut in half then sliced vertically into "strips"
4 cloves or garlic; minced
1 large bell pepper (yellow or red), vertically sliced
3 small hot green chillies; roughly chopped
5 to 6 large mushrooms, sliced
1 400g tin chopped tomatoes; (not plum tomatoes) or the fresh equivalent; skin-on
1 chicken stock cube (or vegetable) dissolved in approx. 350ml water
200g baked beans in tomato sauce
3 tspns mild curry powder —e.g. "Madras"
2 tspns cumin
8 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick; snapped in half
3 tspns turmeric
4 or 5 dried bay leaves
A generous clutch of fresh coriander, roughly chopped
For the yellow rice with raisins
1.5 cups basmati rice
A generous handful of raisins (or sultanas)
2 tspns turmeric
3 or 4 cardammon pods; half-crushed
1 tspn golden caster sugar (optional)
For the sambal
Approx. 5cm fresh cucumber; washed and chopped
1 large hot green chilli; washed and chopped
3 or 4 spring onions, chopped
3 tbspns desiccated coconut
A small clutch of fresh coriander; finely chopped
3 tbspns cider vinegar
A dash of sesame oil (or peanut oil)
Cooking Method
the Cape Malay sweet potato curry
In a pan with a lid— Violet stressed it worked better in a pan that was "wider and shallower" rather than a deep pot—heat the oil on a medium-to-high heat. When hot, add the garlic and sizzle for a couple of minutes. Add the green chillies, cardamom pods and half of the dry spices, stirring to release the aromas
Add the onions and mix in. When the onions have sizzled for a few minutes, add a little water—about 20 to 30ml—and stir in to create a "cooking liquor". Reduce the heat slightly, cover and sweat the onions
When the onions soften, add the sliced bell pepper and stir in. Add another 20 to 30ml water. Stir, re-cover and sweat the ingredients
Once the peppers soften—the onions should be nicely softened by this point—add the mushrooms and stir in. Add the remaining dry spices and stir in. Again, add 20 to 30ml of water, re-cover and sweat. This time you want to sweat the ingredients for a little longer—approx. 7 to 8mins—on a low-to-medium heat
Once these ingredients are pretty much cooked, add the tinned (or chopped fresh) tomatoes, with any juices, and stir in. Increase to a medium heat. Add the broken cinnamon stick, cover and bring to a healthy simmer. Simmer for 8 to 10mins, stirring occasionally to prevent sticking
Crumble the chicken stock cube into the empty tomato can and dilute in boiling water—until the can is filled. Add the sweet potatoes, carrots and potatoes to the pot and fold in ensuring they're fully coated with the juices. Cook in the juices for 2 or 3mins. Then, slowly pour in the diluted chicken (or vegetable) stock. Increase the heat so that it comes to a healthy simmer. Simmer on a medium heat for 15mins, stirring occasionally
Add the grated apple to the top of the ingredients and sweat for 5mins. Then, stir in and simmer for a further 5mins
Squeeze in the juice of the lime (or lemon). Cut the fruit skins into quarters and place in the pot, stirring in. Re-cover, reduce to a low heat and simmer very gently for a further 15mins
Add the chopped fresh coriander to the top of the pot. Re-cover and cook for 5mins. Stir in the wilted coriander and simmer the pot for an additional 5mins on a low heat. By this time the sweet potato should be starting to crumble—this doesn't happen with a celeriac or kohlrabi version (which is fine). If your curry is already too thick, add approx. ½ a cup of water and stir in: it will reduce soon enough
Add the baked beans in their tomato sauce and the 2 heaped tspns of mango chutney and stir in. Re-cover and simmer on a low heat for a further 5 or 6mins.
Reduce until the curry is suitably thick. Once it achieves the desired consistency, remove from the heat and allow to rest for 5mins before plating
the sambal — "klapper sonder piesang"
Prepare this some time before—at least 40mins before serving—and store, covered, in the fridge, allowing sufficient time to return to room temperature before taking to table. It's very simple: stir all the vegetable ingredients together in a suitable condiment dish
Dress with the vinegar and oil. Take to table as a condiment
the yellow rice with raisins
Place your rinsed basmati rice in a pot, adding the appropriate volume of salted water (ordinarily 2x that of rice). Stir in the turmeric, raisins, cardamon pods and golden caster sugar
Bring to the boil. Boil briefly, then reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the rice is cooked and all the liquid has boiled off, stirring with a fork to "fluff' it up" before serving
Alternatives
Vegans and vegetarians
As mentioned above, the purist version of this dish uses chicken stock. But, it works just as well with vegetable stock, making it a fully vegan dish.
Pescatarians
No, not really in the spirit of this one. I've never tried it.
Carnivores
As described above, this is actually a dish that was often cooked with chicken—on the days chicken could be afforded—in which case, proportionally reduce the quantity of sweet potatoes, potato and carrots. Add and sauté the chicken before adding the tomatoes, ensuring it's sealed before you add the tomatoes.
According to Violet, the traditional preference was for chicken still on the bone—such as legs or thighs—and that it would always be cooked with the skin on since this gave more flavour. I've cooked these chicken versions on numerous occasions and I can vouch that they taste utterly fantastic.
Pairings
I usually have this dish with sparkling water with a slice of lemon or lime, beer or a SAFA chenin blanc, the "peppery" white wine that best tackles curries, in my opinion.
We're gonna leave it up to Karel to deliver the more "artistic" wine parings. That's not a jibe: I don't doubt they exist, nor that the dish doesn't deserve a more gastronomic revision. I've just never looked far beyond the local for wines to enjoy with this down-home Cape dish.
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