FAMILY TIES
In Thando Moleketi-Williams’ house a one-tray veg bake with charred sweet potato is in heavy rotation, inspired by her grandmother’s resourceful cooking style
Thando Moleketi-Williams shares supper secrets inspired by her grandmother’s cooking.
The last conversation I had with my late granny Cynthia last year was about green bean bredie. We spoke about how best to season it. Her favourite way was to use only salt and pepper with a few cloves, while I add cumin and coriander. My gran was a great influence on, and laid the foundation for my cooking style, as I lived with her for several periods of my life, starting from the age of six and on the last occasion when I was in my early 20s. My memories are flooded with the tastes and aromas that filled her kitchen.
As she had done out of circumstance, I have made the conscious choice to cook most of the meals my children eat from scratch. My signature style of one-dish cooking is a direct result of observing her efficacy at using only one cooking instrument. As a mother of six, I imagine she had little choice but to be efficient and innovative, saving time and effort, and offering love in abundance. The peppery smell of simmering green bean bredie would bring me great comfort long before I sat down to a plate of beans studded with chunks of lamb and potatoes. Home-made fruit cakes wrapped in foil were a sign that end-ofyear, or rather Christmas, holidays had begun. And when the fragrance of patat
– sugar and sweet potato caramelised and just beginning to burn at the bottom of the pot – started wafting through the air on a Sunday morning, this was an indicator that lunch would soon be served.
I often wonder if I will impart to my own children a fraction of the fond memories of food and knowledge I received from her. But the whir of our vector oven fan, along with the sound of the hefty cast-iron oven tray being hauled out of a cupboard and my frantic footsteps across the kitchen floor, is surely a signal to my kids that it’s almost dinner time. As a mom of two under-threes, I
have limited mind space, so on most days I choose to use the oven to make simple dinners. I serve derivatives of my childhood favourites with a slight modern, generally healthier, approach.
A favourite in our household is intentionally charred sweet potato, which has an aroma reminiscent of burnt patat when the natural sugars caramelise at the bottom of the oven tray. Sweet potato char has become my patat, and it’s the perfect accompaniment to many meals. Offering a range of textures and flavours, it’s crunchy on the base, and naturally sweet and smoky from the char. It’s on our menu at least once a week as part of a one-tray meal beside cumin-spiced, coconut-oil-roasted cauliflower, which I make with either fresh raw or leftover steamed cauliflower. I always add broccoli or green beans to the roasting tray along with a versatile legume such as chickpeas. We like to garnish our meal with chopped avocado or guacamole. The final addition to our plates is something I didn’t commonly eat while growing up – a good-for-the-gut fermented vegetable or quick cucumber pickle, layering a spectrum of flavours and textures onto a simple, satisfying weekday meal.
“It’s crunchy on the base, and naturally sweet and smoky from the char”