BACK to My ROOTS — PAP and Sauce (similiar to polenta and tomato suace)

You must have heard about me mentioning PAP a lot. Its something that South Africans love and most of Africa eat as their staple diet . If a South African moves abroad the first things they ask local expats where can we get boerewors, biltong , droewors and MIELIE PAP FLOUR ( maize corn on the Cobb flour)  .

The closest thing to compare it with that people might be familiar with is Italian Polenta. But its not really . And sometimes you can get yellow pap also from the yellow corn on the Cobb. Most pap is white and made from the bigger whiter corn of the Cobb that has big white corns.

Its a must for every BBQ/ BRAAI  in South Africa . There are two types and sort of a third. One is very crumby  ( krimmel pap) this is either achieved using a more coarsely ground flour or making a slightly more flour to water ratio but the former is better to achieve this. Two is the very sloppy more putty pliable like clay but firm and not runny . This is normally with finer ground flour . The sort of third one is where people have both above methods  with milk.

The first two methods is always accompanied with a lovely homemade type of tomato onion relish that we make or you can buy in a tin in every supermarket in SA.

And obviously a lot of meat that is just a norm.

Then there is the left over PAP at the bottom of the pot . This is another lovely meal on its self as it form a crust and lovely to dip/ drag it through the sauce . Or you can re heat and put lovely butter or jam on it . Below isnt a good example but it was a small  piece that I have a photo of . You can pull as big a piece as what it allows you at a time and sometimes can pull the entire form of the put out . You can also serve stew  in it as the meat and sauce’s soaks through it you can eat it with the stew .     We call it “aanbrandsel”  ( the bit that burns on to the pot thats what creates this skin or crust)