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My favorite South African meal prep:

I’m sharing my family’s Cape Malay curry recipe – this recipe is dairy-free and gluten-free, and actually makes great meal prep. If you often prep chicken and rice dishes, you can try this one as something new!

So if you follow my blog and don’t already know, I’m from South Africa – and one of my favorite meals I ate growing up was Cape Malay curry.

In South Africa there’s 2 main types of curry: Cape Malay curry and Durban curry. Cape Malay curry is a mild sweet and savory curry with Malaysian, African, European and Indian influences, while Durban curry is a hot curry with Indian and African influences.

In South Africa we have 12 official languages and a lot of different cultural groups, and so it’s no surprise that there’s also a lot of different types of cuisines.

Cape Malay people were originally brought to South Africa from Malaysia and Indonesia as far back as the 1600’s (as slaves and political refugees) where they mixed with people from Africa, India and Europe – so today they have a very mixed ancestry including South East Asian, European, Indian, Madagascan, Egyptian, Khoisan and African. This has resulted in Cape Malay food having influences from a lot of different places like Malaysia, South East Asia, India, Africa and Europe.

Cape Malay people have their own unique culture in South Africa – they are almost always Muslim and they mostly speak Afrikaans as their first language (Afrikaans is old Dutch mixed with a small amount of French, German, English, Malaysian and Khoisan). Afrikaans is the most common language spoken in the Western Cape province of South Africa where Cape Town is situated, and the Western Cape has the largest Cape Malay population in South Africa (although Cape Malay people live all over the country).

I was born in Cape Town, and grew up in Cape Town and Gqeberha. I’m not Cape Malay myself but I did have Cape Malay great grandparents on both sides of my family, and my dad used to love telling my sister and I stories about how our great grandparents ended up in South Africa. I also ended up with a lot of old recipes passed down from my granny and mom.

I’m gonna show you a Cape Malay curry recipe based on my granny’s old recipe – I couldn’t find anything exactly like this online (especially the toppings) and I think it might be a slight variation of the Cape Malay food found in the Western Cape province of South Africa. I think it might be like something more commonly found in the Eastern Cape province or Gqeberha. But this is what I ate growing up, and what my mom ate growing up with her mom making it (and what her mom ate growing up).

In the recipe I’m sharing, the toppings are maybe the most important part – so don’t skip them even if they might seem strange!

Hope you enjoy!
Liezl

Ps. You can see how easy it is to make this recipe in my ‘What I eat in a week video’ on YouTube:

Recipe

Cape Malay curry ingredients:
– Cape malay curry powder (recipe below)
– *2 lbs chicken thighs (skinless and boneless)
– 1/4 cup oil
– 2 to 3 tbsp finely grated ginger
– 3 medium onions (finely chopped)
– 1x 400g can tomatoes
– 2 to 3 tbsp white vinegar
– 1 cup water
– 1/2 cup dried apricots (soaked, drained and sliced in quarters)
– 3 to 4 lbs potatoes potatoes (peeled and quartered)
– 1 tsp salt (or to taste)
– optional: 1 to 3 cloves garlic
– optional: 1 tbsp brown sugar (or apricot jam)
– optional: squeeze lemon juice
– optional: cornstarch (if needed to thicken, 1 tbsp mixed in 1/4 cup water)
*Notes: I don’t recommend using chicken breast meat for this recipe as it can become quite dry, if you use skinless boneless chicken thighs it stays very tender. If you want a vegan option you could try using firm tofu instead of the chicken thighs, see my notes below.

My granny’s special toppings:
– fresh coriander
– banana slices in lemon juice
– *chutney (I like Mrs Balls classic South African chutney)
– desiccated coconut
*Notes: You can get Mrs Balls classic chutney at stores like World Market in the US, or online from African Hut or Aubergine Foods (both are online South African food stores in the US)

Cape Malay curry powder ingredients:
– 2 tsp coriander powder/ seeds
– 2 tsp turmeric
– 2 tsp cumin powder
– 1 tsp mustard powder
– 1 tsp chili powder
– 1 tsp chili flakes
– 1 tsp black pepper
– 1/2 tsp cardamom powder
– 1/3 tsp allspice powder
– 1/2 tsp cinnamon
– 1/2 fenugreek powder if you have
– 1/2 tsp fennel powder or seeds
– 4 cloves (remove before serving)
– 5 curry leaves (remove before serving)

Cape Malay curry steps:
– make curry powder mix
– soak dried apricots in water
– chop onions
– peel and chop potatoes
– grate ginger
– get rice cooking on stove
– add oil to a separate large pot on stove
– sautee onions (and optionally garlic) until caramelized
– stir in curry powder mix
– add chicken thighs, and sear to lock in moisture for 3 to 5 minutes
– drain and chop soaked apricots
– add in chopped apricots, tomatoes, vinegar, and water
– once everything is mixed, add potatoes
– leave to simmer for 30-40 minutes (or until potatoes are soft and chicken is cooked through)
– get toppings ready (lemon banana, coconut, chutney and coriander)
– serve the curry and rice with the toppings on the side
– enjoy!

Vegan alternative:
You could make this recipe vegan by using firm tofu instead of the chicken thighs (add with the potatoes in that case), however I have not tried it (it should work though as I often replace chicken with tofu in my other recipes!)

Lamb alternative:
In South Africa, Cape Malay curry is most commonly made with lamb – so you can feel free to switch the chicken thigh meat for cubed lamb meat.
My family used to make it with lamb or chicken when I was growing up (I usually eat a lamb version when I’m with my family in South Africa, but when I cook it myself in the US then I use chicken).

More about Cape Malay food

When I was looking online to compare my family’s recipe to others, I found a lot of sites claiming to have Cape Malay recipes that didn’t look very authentic to me (posted by people who are not from South Africa). So I searched to find some sites/ channels/ books by real Cape Malay people. If you’d like to know more about Cape Malay food you could try these ones – there are probably more, but these are ones that I found.
What I noticed in these sites and books is that their Cape Malay curry recipes differed quite a bit from mine, which is what makes me think my granny’s recipe is more from the Gqeberha region of South Africa and not the Cape Town region like a lot of these sites/ books. However most of the other recipes shown on the sites and books are the same as what I grew up eating (just the curry was different).

Books by Cape Malay people
– My Cape Malay Kitchen by Cariema Isaacs
– The Cape Malay cookbook by Faldela Williams (I don’t think this is in print anymore as it’s an old book, but there are 2nd hand copies available online)
– Cape, Curry & Koesisters by Fatima Sydow (I’m not sure if this is available outside of South Africa)
– Fatima Sydow Cooks by Fatima Sydow (I’m not sure if this is available outside of South Africa)

Blogs by Cape Malay people (links to their Cape Malay curry recipes)
– Tantalise my tastebuds: https://www.tantalisemytastebuds.com/cape-malay-lamb-curry/
– Fatima Sydow: https://fatimasydow.co.za/2019/08/25/mutton-curry/
– Taste magazine (a popular food magazine in South Africa that has some Cape Malay recipes): https://taste.co.za/recipes/cape-malay-lamb-curry/ or https://taste.co.za/recipes/maureens-cape-malay-curry/

YouTube channels by Cape Malay people
– Fatima Sydow Cooks (no longer an active channel, but still a great resource for Cape Malay cooking), here is her chicken curry recipe on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v6XanbpcTPk )

Recipes, photos and video by Liezl Jayne for liezljayne.com