Cuisine from South Africa

Yesterday I bought a pressure cooker - quite impulsively. Well, I mean it's shocking that I hadn't owned one before, I know, with the type of healthy cooking I do, etc., but somehow I've always been intimidated by something that could blow your head off. Yesterday, after 5 days of heavy downpours, the sun shone brightly in the sky and I was blipping around doing Saturday morning chores and feeling generally good about things. I didn't read the newspapers much this week, you see, so the Supreme Court decision about campaign financing, and the disaster in Haiti and in Massachusetts, and the Health Care bill, etc. - none of that made it to my consciousness. So I was in a good mood. Lots of rain in January usually has that effect on me. So I popped into Bed, Bath, and Beyond for some linen and noticed the pressure cooker. I eyeballed the options - aluminium, stainless steel, 6 qt, 8, qt - and settled for the 6qt stainless steel. It cost $69.99. I don't usually buy anything that's over $50 if it isn't on sale, but I just felt a sudden urgency to possess a pressure cooker, so I bought it.

We were having guests over for dinner. I decided to make a South African dish - samp. Samp is made from dried up corn kernels whch are cracked into smaller pieces. You boil it and then try to do something exciting with it to make it edible. This dish is a staple among the Xhosa and Zulu people of South Africa, but is very much enjoyed by everyone. In the US you can find hominy which is made from the same basic ingredient - dried corn kernels.
A quick Internet search for samp brought up some fairly bland recipes. Basically beans, samp, onions, oil, and salt. So, I thought, why not make it like a chili? So this is what I did:

I used my new pressure cooker to boil the samp (purchased last week by my friend, Premi, from a South African store in LA) and some red beans. I chopped up an onion and using a big saucepan, sauteed it in sunflower oil ( high smoking point). Next I added carrots, and a few minutes later, some portabella mushrooms, and chopped garlic. The seasonings were added at this point - cumin, coriander, and cayenne. After a few minutes I threw in some tomatoes. In summer I would choose fresh tomatoes and chop them in a medium sized cuisinart. Since it's winter I used canned tomatoes, finely chopped up. When the samp and beans were done - half an hour later - I added them to the sauce I'd made and let all of this simmer together for a few minutes. Then I added salt and freshly grated ginger. The dish was very close to being ready. At this point I threw in broccoli to brighten things up. It was time to look at the consistency. For this I opened up a box of Trader Joe's vegetable broth and poured it into the pan. Just before serving time I added chopped green onions and cilantro and green chilis that were minced together. I did the taste test and found I needed more salt. The very last last thing I did was to drizzle canola oil over the dish. I have to say, this hearty meal was thoroughly enjoyed!!