Spices travel. They came from exotic parts of the East and landed at the Cape of Good Hope at the start of a historic journey for the finest spices in all the world. The Cape became synonymous with its spices, even though they came from afar.

But spices keep moving. As people tasted and became familiar with flavours of cinnamon and cumin, turmeric and fennel, the Cape palate changed. The British, Dutch and French elements of the developing local cuisine was tinged with these new flavours, and our southern African taste for curry was born; but people come and people go, and so the taste for spices went wherever the people went. This is the story of our entire world, this modern day existence in which we can all eat the flavours of almost every food on the planet, often in our own city; but it is also the story of the Karoo, where we have made spices our own and have our own way of playing with their marvellous flavours.

A platteland curry is not the same as a Durban Curry or Cape Malay curry. Our curries are sweeter, and milder, perhaps influenced by the appreciation our noses have for the floral and the herbaceous; we sniff and enjoy the aromas of the veld every day of our lives as we wander around our terrain, whether Karoos Great or Klein, or distinct regions within regions such as the Hantam Karoo or the mysterious Moordenaarskaroo.

I adore a hot, hot Durban Curry; there’s hardly anything to touch that. Cape Malay breyani and chicken akhni are pure joy. But there’s room in the world for other styles too, and in our Karoo kitchens we play with all of the spices that we can lay our hands on. So our curries are neither “Durban” nor “Cape” in style; we take a bit of this and a bit of that to make our curries all our own. There may be elements of a Cape Malay curry in one dish, and of Durban curry in another.

What we do tend to do is err towards a little sweetness. When you’re looking the other way, we might tip some of the Mrs Ball’s chutney right into the pot, as an ingredient rather than a relish to be served alongside it. We are quite likely to put a bit of quince jelly in a curry, on another occasion, and we are not averse to including something from one of our jars of preserves in a curry. Some preserved peaches with the lamb, maybe, or some sliced makataan in the chicken curry.

For a Karoo curry, vegetables are fair game, and not only the traditional inclusions of onion and carrot. Pumpkin or butternut, cubed, find their way into a juicy lamb curry, and both take on spicy flavours beautifully. We add spinach to meaty curries, shredded and stirred in shortly before serving. Dried fruits – whether raisins or sultanas, or deciduous such as dried pears or apples – make appearances too.

We stud our rice with dried fruit, nuts and spices (not only begrafnisrys, which we wrote about last week). Add a handful of raisins or sultanas to the rice while it’s cooking; crackle some cumin seeds, mustard seeds and cardamom pods in a little cooking oil or ghee, then stir it into cooked rice and, for a bit of luxury, fluff in a big knob of butter. Rice and butter are best friends.

As for the meat, don’t feel obliged to use lamb or mutton. Venison curries are popular in the Karoo, and ostrich makes a fine curry too. And no, ostrich is not venison; it’s in a category of its own.

But if it is to be mutton or lamb, you want shanks, fatty ribs (in chunks) or neck, for the best curry. The fat of a sheep works wonders during slow cooking, especially with all those spices. Enrichment, in the best sense of the word. And you can find the recipe for it here. DM/TGIFood

Tony Jackman is Galliova Food Champion 2021. His book, foodSTUFF, is available in the DM Shop or, if sold out, directly from him. Buy it here. 

Follow Tony Jackman on Instagram @tony_jackman_cooks. Share your versions of his recipes with him on Instagram and he’ll see them and respond.

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