It's All About the Gatsby

by Jenny

Foodie Friday ~ South Africa

 

We came about our pick this week a little differently than we have other weeks...We were watching a cooking show and saw The Gatsby Sandwich. With our mouths watering we decided to build a Foodie Friday around this infamous sandwich. It may look like what we know as a hoagie but don't be fooled, there is so much flavor packed in that bread. The Gatsby originated in Cape Town, South Africa. I read some place that they would take leftovers and pack them in a large roll to take to work. Then it became popular in fast food restaurants. The constant is meat, veggies, chips (fries), all on a large roll. The meat could be chicken, fish, and some even do bologna. South Africa has huge range of diverse influence in their cuisine. The flavor of the meat reminded me of Indian food. It is spicy with a hint of sweet. Now here's the recipe:

The Gatsby Sandwich

1 1/2 lbs. of beef steak or roast

3 tbl. masala (we found this in bulk at our local health food store, Mama Jeans, but have seen it at Indian food markets too.

3 large onions, thinly sliced

2 large soft baguettes

sliced tomato

shredded lettuce

chips (fries for us Americans- we used premade to save time but should be straight cut medium thickness

shredded cheddar cheese

 

First, cover your meat with the masala seasoning, rubbing in, then marinate in the fridge for the flavors to develop. Next put thinly sliced onions and meat in skillet to sear all sides and cook onions until their translucent. Then we cooked the meat and onions at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. As soon as the meat is done, start the French fries, I mean, chips. You will want to let the meat rest for about 10 minutes before slicing fairly thinly. While the meat is resting, the chips are cooking, you'll want to shred the cheese and lettuce, and slice the baguette lengthwise.

 

 

Assemble the sandwich with lettuce on the bottom, then tomato slices, the onions, then the meat. Pile on a generous amount of chips then sprinkle with cheese. Broil in the oven to melt the cheese.

 

      

 

This was truly an amazing sandwich. Very filling. Very flavorful. Very huge. You should've seen all of us trying to take a bite.

 Along with our Gatsby sandwich we fixed South African Samp and Beans. South African Samp and Beans is a traditional side dish known as Umngqusho by the Xhosa people. Samp is cracked hominy and this medley also includes black eyed peas, potato, tomato, onion, vegetable bouillon, and curry. It takes a long time but well worth the wait because of the complex flavors. These are not just plain beans! We found our recipe for Umngqusho on food.com. (I even added my photo there because they had none...)

 

 

 

And for dessert we had South African Koeksisters. They are divinely sweet and usually enjoyed during teatime. They are braided pastries that are deep fried and covered in an extremely sweet syrup.  The recipe followed said to make the syrup the night before but we made it first thing in the morning and it chilled for about six hours.  It's similar to a simple syrup recipe but is 2 parts sugar to 1 part water. It includes lemon, 2 cinnamon sticks, and ginger, then is chilled.

You make the dough and then let it set for about 3 hours. When it was time to roll out and cut the dough, we kind of digressed from the recipe a bit. We made ours a little larger, I used a pizza cutter to quickly slice dough. Everyone joined in for the braiding, then we deep fried them. As soon as they left the fryer, they needed to be dipped in the syrup.

 

 

Oh.My.Goodness. I know I rave about a lot of our recipes but this one was spectacular. So sweet, with a hint of lemon and cinnamon and ginger. We probably had forty koeksisters and ate about twenty five of them that night! I was able to share a few with our neighbor and she loved them too!

 

We really enjoyed our South African cuisine experience. I love that it is something we do together as a family. I love that this is homeschool for my family. I can't think of a better way to learn Geography than to try the foods of other countries. And I love that we pray for each of these countries, their people, & missionaries that are there. It's gotten all of us to think outside of ourselves and world. God created a wondrous and diverse world and I'm loving exploring it with my family.