Meet the chef

What came first, bread-making or braai master? The love of cooking over coals definitely came before making bread dough.

What is it about coals that light your fire? I have fond memories of my grandmother going into the woods every Friday and Saturday looking for wood. She would then prepare a lovely fresh snoek for us over the embers, which was the freshest of freshest fish. It was always caught less than a couple of hours beforehand. Super fresh, never frozen, the flavour memorable.

You’ve prepared a delicious range of dishes for a nail-biting Rugby World Cup (RWC) final. Which is your favourite? The snoek, which sits very close to my heart. I always prepare it using my grandmother’s recipe. You can’t go wrong.

There’s no way you would braai and not bring your superb Broodkop sourdough to the feast. What is it about your bread baking that keeps you so passionate about your trade and the bread tasting so good? I think my passion for bread baking comes after discipline, and when that’s right, the rest follows. Broodkop sourdough is made with 100% locally sourced ingredients — stone ground flour from Champagne Valley in the Drakensberg and local sea salt. My secret? The addition of sorghum flour.

The RWC has kept South Africans glued to their screens. Apart from your delicious food, what snacks and tipples have kept you going through all the drama and excitement? I’ve swapped a beer for a rooibos kombucha to keep it local and munch on chilli biltong and wine gums to keep me calm.

You and your wife Des recently had your first child, Roux. Will his first cooking adventure be on the braai or turning flour into bread? Even though his mother and I are both chefs, he will be trained the primitive way, on the fire, as I was.