Botswana - Home cooking

I actually expected I'd find a restaurant which served food from Botswana in London, even if it was a pan-African restaurant that had a limited number of dishes. So I was surprised to find nothing during my research. So it was back to the kitchen.

When trying to decide what to cook, one dish cropped up again and again, and appeared to be pretty much Botswana's national dish. It also looked like it would be one of the most bland meals I've ever cooked. Seswaa. Mashed meat. With salt. Served with pap. Cornmeal. With salt.

Still, authenticity is the name of the game on this project so that's exactly what I cooked. And it couldn't have been easier.

The meal is literally made up of two main ingredients, as mentioned above. I bought 800g of slow cook casserole beef and a 500g bag of cornmeal (I used 400g of this).

The first step was to add the meat to a large pot of water, bring to the boil, then simmer for four hours. This might seem overkill, but as long as the meat simmers slowly it will make things much easier later on. I found myself topping up with water every 45 minutes or so to keep the meat covered. I also added a teaspoon and a half of salt for flavour.

Forty five minutes before the four hours was up, I started on the pap recipe. I opted for a more South African-influenced version, putu pap, which is supposed to be fairly dry and crumbly.

I boiled 600ml water and a teaspoon of salt in a large pan, then dumped 400g of cornmeal into the water. Without mixing, I placed the lid on top of the pan and let it simmer for five minutes before mixing well and adding a knob of butter. Once mixed, I replaced the lid, turned the heat way down and let it pretty much steam for half an hour. I added a dash of boiling water every now and then to replenish the source of moisture, as it was becoming very dry.

Just before the putu pap was ready, I removed the meat from the water and mashed vigourously with the end of a rolling pin. This was much easier that I thought it would be - the meat was incredibly soft. I then dry fried the shredded meat for a few minutes to remove any extra moisture.

Then it was just a case of serving. I ended up with much more meat than I expected.

On eating, it was incredibly dry, as I expected. The meat was surprisingly salty and really quite tasty. The putu pap was a bland as I expected, if not more so.

We tried to eat it as it was for as long as possible, but I had already cunningly reserved the beef stock to which Elle added Bisto gravy granules. This made it much easier to eat!

All in all, I didn't have high hopes for this meal but it ended up being really quite tasty and very filling. But all the way through, in my head, I was already thinking of the next country...