Since I haven’t issued myself a month-long challenge for May, I’m taking on a couple of one-off challenges. This challenge was issued by Nupur, who writes for One Hot Stove. The goal is to find a recipe posted on another blog, and change something major about it and repost, with a link to the original blog post.

This probably isn’t a surprise, but I chose to veggify a meat dish. This dish could also be made gluten-free by using a non-wheat flour to thicken at the end (er, and by not using seitan, which is basically all wheat gluten).

I chose to make a South African Tomao Bredie (stew), which was originally posted by Asha, who writes for Fork Spoon Knife.

The reason I chose this particular recipe is because it is a South African dish that makes use of many spices that I’ve been ignoring lately. This is a very aromatic dish, featuring LOTS of ginger, allspice, cloves, cardamom and peppercorns. YUM! I’ve never tried cooking any South African dishes before, so I thought this would be a great place to start.

Also, the poster wrote about the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency books when describing why SHE chose the recipe… while I haven’t read the books, I really enjoyed the TV series on HBO (Miss 97%!). So… yes, I choose recipes for a combination of reasons, some that make sense and some that do not.

I suppose I need to adapt the inspiration for this dish as well, instead of just stealing the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency reference… If I try really hard, I can just imagine Wikus Van De Merwe eating this (before his run-in with the aliens) in Joburg.

This was a great dish to have on a cool fall day. Yes, I know it is the middle of May — it FEELS LIKE FALL this week! I’m trying really hard not to be angry at the weather man, filtering some of the anger into cooking. Enjoy!

Tomato Bredie

The original recipe can be found at Fork Spoon Knife.

Marinade Ingredients:

• 1 inch chunk of ginger, minced
• 2 tsp all spice powder
• 1/4 tsp salt

Stew Ingredients:

• 1 lb seitan, cut into 1″ cubes (I used this recipe)
• 1 tsp oil
• 4-5 whole cloves
• 1 cinnamon stick, or 1/2 tsp ground
• 4-5 cracked black peppercorns
• 1 medium onions, diced
• 1 inch chunk of ginger, minced
• 2-3 cardamom pods
• 6 medium tomatoes, diced, divided (4 for the stew, 2 for garnish)
• 1 jalapeno, diced (although I don’t think the dish needs it… the ginger offers enough heat)
• 1 cup vegetable stock
• salt, pepper as needed
• 3 medium potatoes, cut into 1 inch cubes
• 1 medium green pepper, chopped
• 1 Tbsp butter
• 1 Tbsp flour

Aromatic Rice Ingredients:

• 2 cardamom pods
• 1 cinnamon stick, or 1/2 tsp ground
• 4 cloves
• 4 cracked peppercorns
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 1/2 cups basmati rice
• 3C water

Preparation:

1. THE NIGHT BEFORE: Coat the seitan pieces evenly with the marinade.Cover and refrigerate overnight.
2. Heat the oil in a deep sauté pan on med-high heat. Toast the cloves, cinnamon, whole peppercorns in the oil until you can smell the spices.
3. Add the onions and sauté until browned.
4. Add the seitan, ginger and cardamom and brown the seitan a little bit. Turn the heat down to medium, cover and let simmer for 5-7 minutes.
5. Add the tomatoes, jalapeno, stock, salt and pepper and stir well. Simmer for five more minutes, stirring occasionally.
6. Add the potatoes and simmer until they are cooked through, about 10-15 minutes.
7. While the stew is simmering, prepare the rice:
   1. In a medium pot, heat up 1 tsp of oil. Add the spices, and cook until you start to smell them.
   2. Add the rice and salt, stir thoroughly, and let it toast a little bit (but be careful not to let it burn!)
   3. Add the water, let it come to a boil and reduce to med-low heat. Cover immediately and cook until the rice absorbs all of the water. Fluff with a fork when done.
8. About 10 minutes into the simmering, add the green pepper.
9. When the stew is cooked through, melt the butter in a small pan and add the flour to it. Cook for a minute and then add the roux to the stew to thicken.
10. Once the potatoes are cooked, heat up a small pan on med-low heat to prepare a roux. Melt the butter, and add the flour, stirring constantly until it forms a thin paste. Cook for about a minute.
11. Add the roux to the stew to thicken. Make sure it all gets incorporated into the stew, leaving no clumps.
12. Serve over hot aromatic rice and top with some fresh diced tomato. I also added some chopped green onion and diced avocado… not sure if it’s especially authentic, but it added some nice colour and I wanted to use up an avocado.