Enkosi Cookathon: Phutu and Relish
Our South African Cookathon would not be worth it’s sugar without a recipe featuring the cornerstone ingredient of traditional, local African food, maize. Maize has grown and been devoured in Africa since ancient times, whether eaten smooth as a porridge or ‘pap’ or the more crumbly and textured phutu.
These days, you’ll find phutu being cooked traditionally over fire in rondavels as well as being served in top notch restaurants throughout the country. Here, South African food icon, Phillippa Cheifitz, shares her recipe for phutu and umhluzi wetamatisi ne anyanisi (tomato and onion relish). As she says, ‘it makes a perfect accompaniment to the lifeblood of South African cuisine, the braaivleis’. Download printable version of this recipe.
Cook this recipe – one of the seven in our Enkosi Cookathon collection – submit a photo before midnight on 23 October and stand a chance to win some of the world’s finest kitchen tools. Find out more and get stuck in with us.
Ingredients for the phutu (serves 4-6):
1 cup white maize meal
3 cups water
Bring the water to the boil. Add maize meal all at once without stirring, reduce heat and simmer for about 20 minutes until cooked through. Stir with a large fork until crumbly. Serve hot with tomato and onion relish.
Ingredients for the tomato and onion relish (serves 4):
3 tbsp oil
3 onions, finely chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
6 large tomatoes, peeled and grated
1 tsp cayenne pepper
2 green or red chillies, seeded and chopped
Sea salt and milled black pepper to taste
Heat the oil, add the onions and garlic and sauté until transparent. Add the tomatoes and all the remaining ingredients and cook through until the mixture has thickened. Serve with phutu.
Inspired? Why not try one of the other six recipes in the Enkosi Cookathon collection?
This recipe is from Phillippa Cheifitz’s beautiful book, South Africa Eats. Reproduced here with kind permission. Thanks to Dorah Sitole.