ok so here is some foods from south africa along with their recipes. most of these are really traditional. ok first up.

Bobotie:

Bobotie is a slightly sweet, spiced minced dish. The Cape Malay Bobotie recipe is a traditional version that makes a spicy, slightly sweet dish, with a very light curry flavor.

Bobotie Filling Ingredients:

• 1 lb beef, minced
• 2 eggs
• 2 slices white bread, stale with crusts removed
• 1 onion, thinly sliced
• 2 tbsp cooking oil
• 2 tbsp hot water
• 2 tbsp sugar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• 2 tsp curry powder
• Half tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp garlic, crushed
• 1 tsp turmeric
• Half tsp salt

Bobotie Topping:

• 1 egg, lightly beaten
• Half cup milk
• bay leaves or lemon leaves for garnishing

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Soak the bread in water for 10 minutes, squeeze out the excess and then crumble.
3. In a large frying pan, heat the oil and braise the onion until golden.
4. Break the two eggs into a large bowl and beat lightly. Mix in the mince
5. Add the onion mixture from the frying pan, the hot water, lemon juice, crumbled bread, turmeric and sugar to the mince, mixing well.
6. Spoon the mixture into a well-greased, oven-proof dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown and then remove from the oven.

Topping

1. Combine the other egg with the milk and beat well.
2. Pour the mixture over the bobotie and arrange the bay/lemon leaves as garnish.
3. Return to the oven and bake at 350o F for 10 minutes, or until the topping is set.

Serve the Bobotie with a large salad and rice. this is sooo good but a bit of a mission to cook. we usually have this for our sunday lunch after church.

next up....Tomato Bredie:

A thick, richly flavoured lamb and tomato stew, of Malay origin, but popular throughout South Africa. Ideal served on a bed of rice, to warm away the winter chills.

Serves: 4

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• 1.5 pounds boneless lamb shoulder, cut into 1×2 inch chunks
• 1 large onion, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/8 inch thick slices
• 1 teaspoon finely chopped garlic
• 6 medium sized firm ripe tomatoes, peeled and cut crosswise into 1/4 inch thick slices
• 1 tablespoon finely chopped fresh chillies
• 2 whole cloves
• 1 teaspoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

1. In a heavy 10- to 12-inch skillet, heat the oil over moderate heat until a light haze forms above it.
2. Add the lamb a few pieces at a time and brown. Turn the pieces frequently with a slotted spoon and regulate the heat so that they colour richly and evenly without burning. As the lamb browns, transfer the pieces to a plate.
3. Pour off and discard all but about 2 tablespoons of fat from the skillet and drop in the onion slices and the garlic. Stirring frequently and scraping in any brown particles that cling to the bottom of the pan, cook for 8 to 10 minutes, or until the onions are soft and golden brown.
4. Stir in the tomatoes, chillies, cloves, sugar and salt, then add the lamb and any juices that have accumulated around it.
5. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible temperature, cover tightly and cook for 1 hour, stirring from time to time to prevent the vegetables and lamb from sticking to the pan.
6. Remove the cover and simmer for 30 to 40 minutes or until the lamb is very tender and most of the liquid in the pan has cooked away, stirring and mashing the tomatoes occasionally. The sauce should be thick enough to hold its shape almost solidly in the spoon.
7. Taste for seasoning.
8. Pick out and discard the cloves.
9. Serve the Bredie at once, accompanied with hot rice.

next up is chakalaka. Chakalaka is very “South African”. Chakalaka is served as a sauce or as a relish and often as a cold salad with other greens. Chakalaka is not only served in shebeens but also in 5 star game lodges and fine city hotels.

Chakalaka:

Ingredients:

• 45 ml oil
• 1 onion, grated
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• 1 green pepper, chopped
• 3 green chillies, deseeded and chopped
• 10 ml curry powder
• 3 medium carrots, grated
• 1 medium cauliflower or broccoli, divided into florets
• 1 x 410 g can baked beans in tomato sauce
• salt and pepper to taste

Preparation:

1. Heat oil and sauté onions, garlic, ginger and green pepper with the chillies and curry powder for five minutes.
2. Add the carrots and cauliflower.
3. Cook gently for about 15 minutes, or until all vegetables are cooked.
4. Add beans and seasoning, heat through and allow to cool.
5. Serve cold.

Next up is Koeksisters. its a type of deseret. very good but very sweet.Koeksisters (or Koeksusters) are a traditional South African dessert. They are a syrup-coated doughnut that is twisted into a braided shape (like a plait), prepared by deep-frying the dough in oil and then dipping the fried dough into cold sugar syrup. Very rich and sweet.

Koeksisters:

Ingredients:

Dough:

• 2 Cups cake flour
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 2 tbsp. baking powder
• 4 tbsp. of butter
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup of water
• Oil for frying

Syrup:

• 1 kg of sugar
• 1  and 1/2 cups of water
• 1/2 tsp. ground ginger
• 2 cinnamon sticks
• Juice of one lemon

Instructions:

To pepare the Syrup. (Should be prepared the day before as the the syrup needs to be very cold)

1. Dissolve the sugar in water
2. Add spices and lemon juice and bring to a boil
3. You can mix in a teaspoon or two of cream of tarter in place of the lemon juice
4. Put the syrup in the fridge to cool over night

To prepare the Dough:

1. Sift the flour, salt and baking powder together
2. Rub in butter and mix until pliable
3. Mix with egg and water, adding the water a little at a time. Knead the dough well. If the dough becomes very sticky and lumps, continue to work the dough and it will ball up. 
4. Leave the dough to rest at room temperature for 2 to 3 hours under an inverted mixing bowl.

Instructions for preparing the Koeksisters:

1. Roll out the dough (about 5 mm thick)
2. Cut into strips 5 cm long 2 cm wide
3. Cut each strip into 3 strips leaving the strips connected at the top). 
4. Plat the dough and pinch together at the end.
5. Deep fry the “plaits” until golden brown - remove and drain quickly as you are going to dip the hot Koeksisters into your cold syrup.
6. Keeping the syrup cold and the Koeksisters hot when dipping is key to getting the right amount of syrup to draw into the Koeksisters. (Keep the syrup Cold by placing the syrup bowl into a container of iced water).

thats part one for now. will upload the last three foods as soon i get the full recipes. hope everyone enjoys :D

ok so things have been quite interesting these days. ive been training started training quite hard. we have full contact nationals next year so im gona be training quite hard for those but at this point my main aim is to get my physical good for my upcoming grading. ive been trying to get my driving permit for a while now. i will soon have it though cause my driving has improved quite a bit. its such a mission not having a car but those days are soon over.

i played poker last night. and won 30 rand (the buy in was 50 rand but hey at least i walked away with something :D). on friday i went to check out some random club in johannesburg called malibar. its possibly the smallest club ive seen. i think my lounge is bigger then the club itself . ive written a blog on south african food which i will be putting up tomorrow. complete with recipes and all. just need to confirm a recipe with my grandmother and i will put it up along with pictures and info etc.

for now i leave you all with a short clip made from the director of the grudge movies. i for one didnt find it very scary but he managed to create quite an eerie atmosphere.

Video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPxuXP3BMwA

i broke when i saw this. kak funny.

ok so its been a while since my last blog. things just too hectic to come home and right a decent blog. aint been up to much latley just training and studying and visiting a few of my friends. we dont have power outages anymore thank goodness but that only after a month of power outages. which were quite constant. training is going well im looking at going to start ninjutsu at a school aswell as my kung fu, but i must first discuss this with my instructor. i started learning to play MAGIC: The Gathering with one of my friends. its quite a cool game so we been playing alot of that latley.

i saw the disciples of the 36th chamber the other day. was one of the best kung fu movies ive seen since shaolin temple. forbidden kingdom was released here the other day. but i havent been able to get out to see either of them. damn overbooked cinema's.

started doing sound engineering in my church. quite nice esp since im gona be studying it next year.

ive been doing my jazz lessons aswell. im learning the chords now which are The chords are: major, minor, augmented, diminished, seventh, diminished seventh, sixth, minor seventh, major seventh, Sus 4. very F*cking complicated. we focusing now on chords more than on the style of play. the style was explained at the start so that we could have a brief idea of how the chords will fall in. like we learnt that the left hand changes positions quickly playing notes in the bass register and chords in the tenor register. this style is known as stride piano. is quite complicated at first but once you get going its good. ive gota be on my way so i shall see you ladies and gentlemen around

ok i am under the influence of alcohol whilst doing this cause there was a big rugby match tonite. moving on though:

Rules:

1. Each blogger starts with 10 random facts/habits about themshelves.

2. Bloggers that are tagged need to write on their blog about their 10 things and then post these rules.

3. At the end of your blog, you need to chose 10 people to get tagged and list their names.

4. Dont forget to leave them a comment telling thye're tagged, and to read your blog.

10 utterly uninteresting and stupid facts/habits of mine

1. when i go out to Mc donalds i order a mc flurry and ask the waiter/waitress for a seperate bowl. i then order supersize chips and mix the chips and the mc flurry together and eat them...yummy

2. I am an anime freak and have over 300 different anime series on DVD aswells as on my Pc.

3. Contrary to popular belief by some of my fellow peeps. i am not an aggresive person, but when i get angry there is no one that can calm me down.

4. I love martial art movies and have over 100 of them.

5. I randomly walk everyday to a shop that is five Km just because i feel like it. But when i get back someone always asks me to go again cause they want something.

6. I play the keyboard and piano and have been doing so for the past 10 years.

7. other than english i speak three other languages: Afrikaans, arabic and portuguese. in addition to that im busy learning chinese.

8. I am a video game geek and spend most of my time playing video games when i am not training.

9. I talk with my hands. if someone had to hold my hands to prevent me from showing actions i would not be able to talk.

10. I love being in darkness. if the sun is out i close my curtains cause i love a dark room. if im outside its a different story but in the house it must be dark.

reni, katia, ken, raul, a friend and im sure everone else has been tagged so i will just leave it at that.