Traditional South African Curry Sosaties

How to pronounce ‘sosaties’: se’saties

Let’s start with what is a ‘sosatie’. It’s a kebab, but not just any old kebab! Yes, they’re lamb meat on skewers, but they are marinated in a distinctive aromatic Malay-style sauce.

This is a very popular dish in South Africa and is best prepared on a fire. So yes, we are going to ‘braai’ (barbecue) again to illustrate this recipe. And for that, we chose yet another camping weekend; this time at the very popular Yellow Sands at the mouth of the Kwelera River. (Read here about our camping weekend).

Put it on the table:

We prepared the sauce at home 5 days before our camping weekend and marinated the lamb ‘sosaties’ in the curry sauce. (If you’re in a hurry, you can marinate the ‘sosaties’ for 4 hours or overnight).

We kept the ‘sosaties’ in the fridge, turning each day, until it was time to make our fire and ‘braai’ them at our campsite.

Ingredients

1kg leg of lamb, cut into cubes (our butcher has already deboned the leg of lamb)

6 tablespoons smooth apricot jam

2 tablespoons brown sugar

3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

1 tablespoon cornflour

3 bay leaves

2 tablespoons curry powder

1 tablespoon turmeric

2 tablespoons brown vinegar

salt and white pepper to taste

2 onions, cut in chunks

250g dried apricots

bamboo skewers

Remember to soak the bamboo skewers in water for at least 10 minutes. This way, the skewers will not burn when placed on the fire.

Soak the bamboo skewers in water

Now, all that is left to do, is combine the apricot jam, sugar, garlic, cornflour, bay leaves, curry powder, turmeric, vinegar and salt and pepper. It should cook until slightly thickened.

While the sauce simmers on the stove, cut the lamb and onion in cubes and set aside.

Cook all ingredients (except the lamb, onions and apricots)

Lamb cut into cubes

Thread the meat onto the skewers together with the dried apricots and chunks of onion

Place the lamb ‘sosaties’ in the cooled sauce. We put the ‘sosaties’ and sauce in a Ziploc bag for easy storage in our camping fridge.

‘Sosaties’ and sauce in a tight sealed Ziploc bag

We couldn’t have asked for a more stunning day at Yellow Sands to prepare our curry ‘sosaties’ on the fire.

Beach at Yellow Sands

With our fire going, it was finally time to take the ‘sosaties’ out of the bag and place them on the hot coals.

‘Sosaties’ on our campfire

When the sun disappeared and it began to get dark, it was lovely to sit around the fire. We could hear the waves crashing on the beach at the back of our tent and the sizzling sound of the sauce dripping into the fire – what a great way to spend a weekend.

Our campfire

The ‘sosaties’ are now almost done

Berto dipped the ‘sosaties’ in the sauce one last time

After a week of waiting to eat these flavoursome ‘sosaties’, it was now time to serve them.

Traditional South African Curry Sosasties

The ‘sosaties’ work well with a green salad, but we kept it simple by adding another favourite, namely the traditional ‘braaibroodjie’ (grilled sandwich filled with onion, tomato and cheese).

Camp food at its best

If I could go back in time, I wouldn’t mind going back to this night at Yellow Sands right now.