Though this is a vegetable soup in a sense (green pepper, onions, tomatoes, spring onions), it’s the pepperiness that defines it.

Ingredients

(Photo: Pete Siegfried)

½ kg mutton bones with bits of meat and sinew

3 x medium onions cut in quarters (potjie style)

1 green pepper filleted

4 garlic cloves, large

2 tomatoes, chopped

3 spring onions, chopped

Big handful dhania (coriander leaves), chopped

2 bay leaves

2 tsps black peppercorns, roughly crushed

3 cardamom pods

½ tsp black mustard seeds

½ tsp ground turmeric

Salt

½ tsp ground cumin

½ cup white wine

hot water

Method

(Photo: Pete Siegfried)

“When we ask the butcher to make mutton mince,” writes Siegfried, “she usually takes it off the front shanks and I get the bones ‘for the hound’, but you know where they end up.”

Brown meat in olive oil with 1 ½ tsps black pepper, cardamom, mustard seeds, turmeric and cumin on hot coals or gas, then add onions, green pepper, and garlic.

Keep stirring until everything is softened and then add white wine and keep stirring. When it starts to stick, add enough HOT water to cover and add bay leaves.

Cook for 2 hours on medium heat, add 2 tomatoes, cook 30 minutes more, taste, add 1/2 tsp pepper and salt to taste, add 3 spring onions, cook 30 minutes more. Add dhania and serve. DM/TGIFood

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