Botswanan beef and lemon casserole

Hi everyone! I’m back again after an extended Christmas/summer break! It certainly has been nice to have some time off and just relax! Now I thought I would pick up where I left off, with the next course of my special four-course meal.


For my third (main) course in my four-course meal assignment, I decided to do a meal from an unfamiliar culture. This one was tricky, because the requirement from our lecturer was that if we had regularly eaten the food before, it doesn't count as unfamiliar, even if that food is from a different cultural background to our own. As someone who loves food and who has certainly tried a lot of food, I realised I would need some inspiration!

Luckily, I am an an avid reader, and it is through books that I travel to new and exotic locations, and learn about different places, and different foods, around the world (and of course I also love reading food blogs from around the world!). One of my earliest literary-inspired food memories was from The Chronicles of Narnia, in which the White Witch tempts Edmund to betray his siblings with Turkish Delight (of course, this then magically made me love Turkish Delight).

More recently, I have been enjoying The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series, by Alexander McCall Smith. These books are set in Botswana and tell the story of Mma Ramotswe, who starts the country’s first ever female-owned detective agency. I have actually always been rather intrigued by Botswana since learning about the Okavango Delta in high school. These beautiful stories, with their strong, wise, and funny characters, and the depiction of a delightful, genteel culture, inspired my imagination further. Food of course features prominently in the stories, particularly as Mma Ramotswe gathers her family around the dinner table. So I wanted to cook a meal that would be right at home at Mma Ramotswe’s house.

One prized ingredient in Botswana (as I learned from the book series) is beef, with the size of a family’s cattle herd reflecting a family’s wealth.  After a thorough search online, I found a Botswanan beef and lemon casserole, which in its simplicity and homeliness I thought would be right at home in Mma Ramotswe's kitchen. I served the beef with a spicy Botswanan cabbage and Mealie Pap, which is essentially like polenta.

I received some mixed reviews about the various parts of the meal. We all enjoyed the beef, which was very tender, with a tasty, tangy sauce. Our uncle said “the beef is nice and soft, melts in the mouth, and is a good casserole for a cold day.” However, the cabbage rather divided the crowd. Our 14 year old cousin gave rated it 4 out of 10, explaining that she thought it was too spicy! Luckily, the mealie pap was fairly well liked, with the family deciding that the pap soaked up the beef sauce nicely.

I hope that this dish brought a little bit of Botswana to Australia, and I am looking forward to trying out some more new exotic recipes!

Beef and lemon casserole

Recipe adapted from Celtnet

Serves 6

1.4 kg gravy beef, cut into strips

2 x 130g unwaxed lemons, thinly sliced (remove any pips)

2 small onions (180g), sliced into thin rings

200ml water

2 tbps (40ml) olive oil

1 tbsp (10g) plain flour

Salt and pepper, to taste

Method

Preheat oven to 160°C. Heat olive oil in a large frying pan. Fry beef until brown on both sides. Layer beef into a casserole dish, separating each layer of beef with a layer of onions and lemon slices. Finish with a layer of lemon slices on top. Pour in water and season with salt and pepper. Cover tightly with foil and bake for 90 minutes. Remove foil, then mix plain flour with 2 tbsp water to a smooth slurry. Stir this into casserole. Return to oven and cook for a further 15 minutes. Serve with mealie pap and cabbage.

Botswanan cabbage

Recipe adapted from Celtnet

1 tomato, finely chopped

1 onion, sliced

1 tsp ground ginger

1 tbsp dried oregano

1 tsp dried chilli

½ small white cabbage, shredded

2 tbsp olive oil

Method

Heat oil in pan over medium heat. Fry onion and tomato for five minutes, then add herbs and spices. Stir well until a thick paste forms. Add cabbage and sauté for 2 min to combine. Then cover and cook for 5-10 min or until cabbage is soft.

Mealie pap

Recipe adapted from Global Table Adventure

170g polenta

1 L water

1 vegetable stock cube

Method


Heat water in a medium pop and bring to boil. Add stock cube and stir to dissolve. Stream in polenta slowly. Whisk to keep mixture from lumping. Simmer mixture gently, stirring constantly, until cooked to desired consistency, about 5-10 min.

Thai red curry prawns

 This week, as part of my Nutritional Assessment subject at uni, I had to complete a Food Record Diary. This is a detailed record of everything I ate and drank (including water) for four days, including the weight (in grams), meal type, and time of consumption. As you can imagine, this was quite a difficult and tedious task, as I had to weigh and record everything promptly and accurately before I could eat! Here’s a picture of my diary to give you an idea of what I had to do (please excuse the messy writing, also sorry as for some reason the picture has come up on its side).

The idea of these food diaries is to give an idea of your average food intake. Apparently, these diaries are also often used in weight loss programs, and have been found to be effective in helping weight loss – maybe it helps to make people more aware of their eating patterns, or perhaps like me, the effort of having to record each food rather puts people off eating!

I also found myself using some shortcuts and tricks to make the diary easier, which may reduce the representativeness of my diary. For example, I sometimes served myself a slightly bigger portion so that I wouldn’t have to measure any second servings, and I tried to finish all my meal so that I wouldn’t also have to measure the leftover weights. All in all though it was a useful exercise, as I gained an idea of what my future patients may have to go through, and I became more aware of portion sizes and of what I generally eat in a day.

Lots of vegies!

I included this Thai red curry recipe as one of the entries in my food diary, hence some of the rather precise and specific weights I have given (also I apologise for the low quality photos, as I only had my phone on me at the time I was cooking). Mr Duckie loves Thai red curry, and has been feeling the pinch of not being able to eat meat, so I decided to make the curry with prawns. I initially adjusted the recipe so that it would be for two people, but somehow I ended up with enough for dinner and then lunch the next day – maybe my measurements were off!

Plenty left over for the next day!

This was a very quick and easy recipe to make – you can use any vegetables you like (I used what I had in the fridge) and if you prefer, you can easily replace the prawns with firm tofu. The curry was rich, creamy and fragrantly spicy, with a slight tanginess as well from the addition of lime juice. Mr Duckie described this dish as hearty and a good substitute for meat. I added some peanut butter as well to the curry, which added an extra richness and savouriness, but feel free to leave this out if you have a nut allergy.

This is a tasty and versatile meal for any night of the week! What quick dinner recipes do you rely on? And have you ever done a food record diary?

Wishing you all a very lovely week!

Thai red curry prawns

Recipe adapted from Heart Foundation and taste.com.au

*Please excuse if some of the spoon measures are a bit off – I took down the gram weights but not all the spoon measures!

Ingredients

About 2 tbsp Canola oil (17 g)

1 brown onion (179 g)

2 cloves garlic (6 g)

1 thumb sized piece of ginger, peeled (15 g)

2 tbsp Thai red curry paste (56 g – I used Ayam brand paste)

270 ml can light coconut milk (269 g – I used Ayam brand)

200ml water

1 -2 tbsp soy sauce (I used 12 g but you can adjust to your taste)

1 heaped tbsp crunchy peanut butter (35 g)

Juice of half a lime (19 g)

1 tbsp raw sugar (8 g)

600g your choice of vegetables, cut into bite sized cubes (I used Kent pumpkin, fresh shitake mushrooms, fresh baby corn and broccoli)

200 g green prawn meat

Black pepper, pinch

1. Heat oil in a large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, garlic and ginger and fry until soft (about 4-5 min). Add curry paste, stir until combined with onion mixture and cook until fragrant.

2. Add coconut milk, water, soy sauce, peanut butter, lime juice and raw sugar, stir until combined and bring to boil.

3. Add vegetables and simmer until vegetables are cooked (10 -15 minutes depending on your vegetables).

4. Sprinkle prawns with black pepper, add to curry and simmer until cooked through (about 5 minutes). Season with salt and pepper to taste. Serve with steamed jasmine rice.