Justin Bonello’s Roosterkoek in Se7en Steps…

Justin Bonello’s Cooked in Africa is one of our favorite cookbooks ever – here is our rave review!!!

Naturally we needed to try a recipe as soon as we got it! I am dying to try his tin cup breakfast but we needed something to dash on our braai on Saturday and RoosterKoek – braai-bread it was, follow the link for his recipe.

This is what you are aiming for:

and this is what we did:

Let’s Meet the Players:

• a packet of yeast
• a teaspoon of sugar
• 100ml warm water
• 400g flour
• pinch of salt
• a knob of butter
• 2 eggs
• sunflower oil.

Let’s Play The Game:

Step 1: Pop your yeast and sugar into the warm water, sprinkle a tablespoon of flour on top to prevent the top getting a crust (great idea!!!) and leave for ten minutes, until it is active and bubbly.

Step 2: He sieves his flour and salt together… but then he doesn’t have se7en + 1 kids bouncing around. I did measure it and in it went…

Step 3: Using your fingers rub the butter into the flour.

Step 4: Beat the eggs and add them to your, by now, frothing yeast mixture. Make a well in your flour and pour in the mixture.

Step 5: Then knead the dough – and its all about those bouncing kids, he did it by hand and we used a machine.

Step 6: Rub sunflower oil on your dough, so that it doesn’t dry out and leave it to rise and double in size. Once the dough has risen give it a quick knead and divide it in half and in half and in half again… roll your chunks into balls and leave them to rise gain.

Step 7: Then, since they were our dessert, we popped a piece of chocolate into each one for a surprise. You could just as easily use jam.

Our fire had burnt down considerably, and we popped the rolls onto the grid, after a couple of minutes we turned them.

When they are brown on both sides and cooked through…

You are done… a nice warm to be eaten round the fire surprise!!!

That’s it – Bon Appetito!!!