Africa Wild

Jan Braai Red Hot Gatsby steak sandwich

Jan Braai’s braai guide – Jan Braai Red Hot which is now available in paperback – contains recipes for beef, chicken, lamb, seafood, pork, ostrich and venison, as well as loads of other braai ideas

The Gatsby sandwich is a cult classic in the Western Cape. It’s traditionally served on the long white bread roll known as a baguette and is stuffed with generous helpings of your favourite ingredients.

"Our choice of meat for the braai Gatsby is masala-spiced steak," says Jan. "Commercially sold Gatsbys usually contain French fries, but we’re going one up on that by including home-made potato röstis instead."

The recipe serves six

Jan Braai's Gatsby

Ingredients
For the Gatsby

-600g rump or sirloin steak (in total, can be two smaller pieces)
- ½ tot oil
- ½ tot masala spice
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 1 large baguette
- soft butter (for spreading on the bread)
- some crisp lettuce leaves (washed)
- 2–3 ripe tomatoes (sliced)
- 2 onions (caramelised)
- 1 cup cheddar cheese (grated)
- ½ cup mayonnaise
- ½ tsp peri-peri powder (or to taste)
- For the röstis (makes 2 large pan-size röstis)

- 1 onion (peeled)
- 4 medium potatoes (if you like peeling potatoes, peel them; but if you’re similar to me and don’t like peeling potatoes, don’t)
- 1 tsp salt
- ½ tsp pepper
- 1 tot olive oil
- 1 tot butter

Method

1. Coat the steak with oil, then season it evenly with the masala spice. It’s best to do this spicing a few hours before the braai, or even the previous day. If you reckon the steak might be tough, no one will complain if you give it a few good whacks with a meat mallet before spicing it, especially not Jan.

2. Make the potato röstis. Grate the onion and potatoes with the coarse side of your grater and toss them into a mixing bowl. Add the salt and pepper and mix well.

3. In a flat-bottomed cast-iron pot or flameproof pan over a medium-hot fire, heat the oil and butter together. Then put the rösti mixture into the pan, using an egg lifter or a spatula to flatten each rösti by putting some pressure on it.

You can either make one big rösti at a time that fills the whole pan, or make a few smaller röstis together in the pan. The latter option is easier, as one big rösti sometimes breaks when you turn it.

Whichever route you go, the rösti should be about 1 cm thick.

Fry until golden brown on both sides, which should take about 3–5 minutes a side over medium heat.

3. Remove from the pan. If you made smaller röstis, they can be served whole, and if you made bigger röstis you can slice them into quarters.

4. Braai the steak over very hot coals for 4 minutes a side, then take it off the fire. Leave it on a wooden board to rest a few minutes.

5. While the steak is taking a nap, cut the bread open lengthways (but not completely through) and spread butter on the inside. Keeping it open, toast the buttered side over the coals for a minute or two.

6. To assemble the Gatsby, put a few lettuce leaves on the bottom half of the bread. Then add slices of tomato and pack rösti pieces on top of that.

7. Slice the steak into thin strips and add to the baguette together with the caramelised onion and Cheddar cheese.

8. Mix the peri-peri into the mayo and spread it onto the inside top half of the baguette. Logic dictates that the more peri-peri you mix into the mayo, the hotter it will be, so use your common sense to adjust the burn to your liking.

9. Close the sandwich and slice into four to six pieces (one per person).

"In the first step of this recipe, I advise you to whack the steak a few times with a meat mallet if you think that it’s going to be tough. This is general advice not only applicable to this recipe.

"If you think your steak is going to be tough, slap it in the face a few times until it drops that attitude. I’ve been to the odd well-known steakhouse that uses this method to tenderise their steaks; they just don’t talk about it.

"Obviously, it is better to buy proper dry-aged steaks that do not need any further treatment, but for a recipe like this that is a waste of money. I just use normal wet-aged supermarket meat."

The paperback edition of Jan Braai Red Hot is published by Bookstorm and retails for around R295.

I would not eat it, not to talk about preparing it

Potatoes and bread together

Would love a steak round about now...must admit I'm getting tired of pizza and pasta!!

Deep frozen fish I don't know if you find it at "Conad"

We had our biennial potjie competition at Bergville over Xmas!

The family splits up into 3 teams - Tugela Tigers, Burgersfort Bitches and Pretoria Petunias. (I am a Tiger, along with Prinswilliam and Uncle Fixit)

We made a simple chicken pot, but it was so nice because all the veggies were taken from the garden that morning - makes a HUGE difference!


Things get a bit out of hand always, but this year no shots fired or bolts thrown, which was a win! We raided the Bitches' camp and came upon a set of medals that they had bought for themselves, which is a bit forward if you ask me! So UF stole them!

(I suspect they drink a bit too much tea, to be honest.)

Momprins was the judge, and we gave her a starter of a chicken foot - which she refused...

But our potjie itself won first place! The other teams were stunned and cried foul, but jealousy makes you nasty and all that.

UF then solemnly proceeded to put the stolen medals on our team in front of them, and Aardvarksa and Mike Roetz lost it and jumped into their Cruiser and went drinking in town - spinning a long trench in UF's beautiful lawn!


Anyway, next day all was fine again...

Not a bad backdrop:

Chicken feet

I will stick to cat feet