CAMP FOOD – Elands Bay, West Coast (South Africa)

March 2022

Warning: This post will contain many FOOD pictures. If you’re hungry, we suggest you fill your tummy before reading (and my apologies to our vegetarian friends).

We recently had another camping weekend … at the very same place we were in January. The lovely seaside village of Elands Bay called us back to enjoy more of its beauty.

Some of you might remember our previous camping trip at Elands Bay (you can read about it here) and we will once again show you more of this amazing place in our next posts. But, for this post, we decided to show more of the camping food we prepare … with a few sunset photo’s and beach visits in between (just to give our stomachs a bit of a rest).

Let’s go camping and eating!

• Steak stuffed with cheese (with a creamy garlic mushroom sauce) & Rocket/Roasted tomato/Feta salad:

On our first night, Berto made something we have not tried before – steak stuffed with mature cheddar cheese!

Steak:

We wanted the cheese to melt, but not to fall out of the steak. Therefore, Berto ‘stitched’ the steak up with small pieces of wire (just make sure to remove these before eating). We then marinated the steak in Olive oil and Worcestershire sauce for an hour.

While waiting for the steak to marinate, we could sit back and watch the amazing sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, while we were getting our camp fire ready for dinner.

Creamy garlic mushroom sauce:

What is a steak without a sauce? For the sauce, we simply melted garlic butter in our black ‘potjie’ over hot coals and then added the sliced mushrooms until they were soft and brown. After we have added cream, we left it to thicken – this is a really easy and delicious sauce!

Roasted tomatoes:

A fresh salad with steak is always a winner. To roast mini tomatoes on the fire, can be problematic … but we made a plan. We used skewers to roast the mini tomatoes (and I’m happy to report that none ended up in the coals)!

When we started to see a tiny drop of cheese coming from the steak, we knew it was ready to be taken off the coals.

Result:

It was yumminess in overload! The sauce makes this dish very rich and we might just leave the sauce out next time … but definitely use the sauce for other dishes. The salad is fresh (those roasted tomatoes are almost sweet) and compliments the steak perfectly.

• Stuffed chicken drumsticks & grilled corn with garlic butter

The great thing about this dish, is that you can fill the chicken drumsticks with anything you like. But be warned, it can be tricky to debone a chicken drumstick.

Stuffed chicken drumsticks:

We like to stuff our chicken drumsticks with sundried tomatoes and feta cheese. While it’s on the fire, Berto will brush the drumsticks with Jimmy Sauce (a steakhouse sauce).

Corn in garlic butter:

This is such an easy dish to make on any camping trip and we love it! Just make sure you remember to pack in the foil … drizzle the corn with Olive oil, put plenty of garlic butter on and finish it off with salt and pepper. The corn basically cooks in the foil and towards the end we will remove the foil to grill the corn on the hot coals for just a couple of minutes.

It was such a beautiful day while we were preparing these on the fire – a typical summer’s day in Elands Bay!

Let’s finish our meal for this afternoon … the stuffed chicken drumsticks and corn in foil were on the hot coals. Towards the end, Berto brushed a bit of our favourite Jimmy Sauce over the drumsticks for extra flavour.

Result:

Ten out of ten! I always enjoy filled chicken drumsticks (doesn’t matter the stuffing) and corn is a favourite of mine since childhood.

I think it’s time to take a break from all of the food, don’t you? Since it was such a hot day, we could think of no better place than to take a walk on the beach (and to cool off in the sea).

• Skewered pork & pineapple with garlic potatoes

Some of our regular readers will remember from a previous post (you can read about it here), that we recently found out that pork belly can turn out as quite a delicious meal. While we made Souvlaki with the pork belly last time, we decided to stay with the skewered pork belly, but this time make a delicious tangy sauce to go with it.

Skewered pork & pineapple:

Berto already prepared the pork belly at home before we left on our camping trip. He removed the skin and bones of the pork belly and then cut the belly into cubes. It was then packed in ziplog bags to to freeze.

On the day that we wanted to prepare it on the fire, we took it out of our camping fridge to defrost and Berto just added fresh pineapple pieces and red pepper with the pork cubes.

Garlic potatoes:

This is so easy to prepare (we used our portable gas stove for this dish). Small potatoes are washed in cold water and then cooked until they’re soft. The potatoes are then sliced in half, goes back in the pot with enough garlic butter, salt & pepper. When everything is thoroughly mixed together, this dish is ready.

Result:

I think we are busy falling in love with pork belly! It turned out really nice (the sauce turned this almost into a sweet and sour pork dish). And remember, it is not fatty at all because the fat drips in the hot coals while we’re preparing it, but it’s still juicy enough to enjoy. The garlic potatoes are always enjoyable … make sure everyone with you eats it so that your garlic breath won’t be a problem!

• Chicken & Rice ‘potjie’

When we are camping, there will always feature a ‘potjie’ dish. Remember, ‘potjie’ is that dish that is prepared in a cast iron pot on the fire.

Berto spiced the chicken thighs and wings in a bag before he added it to the pot on the fire. The spices he used was paprika, coriander, cumin and salt & pepper.

When the chicken browned enough, Berto took it out and cooked chopped onion and carrots in a little Olive oil.

Once the veggies were soft, Berto returned the chicken with half a cup of rice and a tin of chopped tomatoes.

So, when is it done? Well, after you and your partner drank a bottle of wine, it should be ready 😉. But remember that the rice needs to be soft, you can therefore add a bit more water should you need to cook it further.

Result:

It was super d-e-l-i-c-i-o-u-s!! The rice that cooked in the pot with the chicken at the same time, just gave this dish a great flavour. And the best of a ‘potjie’ … if there’s left overs, it’s even better the next day!

I think it’s time for a walk on the beach after all these delicious meals …

We hope you have enjoyed our ‘food edition’ of our camping trip to Elands Bay. In our next post, we will show you more of Elands Bay’s surfers (and a walk in full moon). But wait, what about just one final sunset …