My friend Izel is from Namibia, a country that I really wasn't familiar with at all, but soon learned that it used to be part of South Africa, called South West Africa, until its independence. Its filled with similar types of people that live in South Africa, with a lot of Afrikaaners, and the Namibian dishes that my friend Izel talked about are also traditional South African foods among the Afrikaaners (and others). I'd wanted to try to make my kids South African foods, because of their South African heritage, but didn't know of many. However, most foods my friend Izel talks about are foods I can't eat, because they are gluten or dairy or eggs or a combination of all three (milktert I'm looking at you) or foods that I can't buy locally, like springbok.
From my friend, though, I learned about a South African and Namibian dish, a skewered meat dish, called sosaties, from the word
sate, skewered meat, and
saus, spicy sauce. This dish was brought to the Afrikaaners (the descendants of the Dutch Settlers in South Africa) by the
Cape Malay ethnic group who were of various Asian descent, and while its usually made with lamb, it can be made with any meat. Other common ingredients are dried apricots, peppers, and onions.
Chicken is the cheapest meat I can get, so I decided to make those, and I didn't have apricots or apricot jam like many recipes I saw called for, so I was happy when the recipe I got from Izel didn't have any of that, just with various ingredients and spices I already had in my house. Because I have some kids that hate cooked peppers and other kids hate cooked onions, I decided to make them separately, some with just peppers, some with just onions, and some with both. By stretching them with peppers and onions, this recipe was able to make 14 or 15 sosaties with just one package of chicken breast. It was a big hit with my family, and a great way to make fancier food on a budget. (I mean, at least in my opinion, food on skewers just seems so much fancier than food off a skewer.)
I told my kids that these are South African shish kebabs, which is kind of silly, because so many cultures around the world have skewered meat recipes, but still these things are known by their Turkish name. This post has actually inspired me to make a series of posts on skewered meat dishes from around the world, because my family loves them so much, and so do many other people.
While you can cook these by pan frying them, roasting them, or cooking on a grill pan, I did this the more traditional way and made them on a barbecue, or as its known in South Africa and Namibia, a braai.
This recipe, as written, is gluten free, paleo, and allergy friendly. If you're vegan, you can probably do something similar to this by using firm tofu cubes instead of the chicken breast, and another sweetener instead of the honey.
Easy and Delicious Chicken Sosaties Recipe- Afrikaans Skewered Meat Dish, South African and Namibian Shish Kebabs, Without Apricots