Would you know a South African inspired dish if you saw one?
Although this isn’t a traditional South African dish its origins is a dead giveaway by using ingredients like apricot jam, vinegar, curry powder and combining meat and fruit. When I cooked this meal, the smell instantly reminded me of home, and the food tasted like the standard “curry” on offer in Transvaal province. Oops! Transvaal doesn’t exist anymore, so let’s say Gauteng. How times have changed. I feel old.
Beef Meatballs with Curried Banana Sauce
- Total Time: 2 hours 30 minutes
- Yield: 6 1x
Ingredients
Scale
meatballs
- 2 onions, chopped
- 2 apples, cored and grated
- 8 prunes, pitted and chopped
- 1kg (2¼ lbs) beef mince
- 7.5ml (½ tbsp) salt crystals
- 2.5ml (½ tsp) ground black pepper
sauce
- 30ml (2 tbsp) cooking oil
- 3 onions, chopped
- 30ml (2 tbsp) mild curry powder
- 15ml (1 tbsp) flour
- 250ml (1 cup) brown vinegar
- 500ml (2 cups) water
- 100ml (3½ fl oz) smooth apricot jam
- 60ml (4 tbsp) brown sugar
- 2 bay leaves
- 6 bananas, peeled and sliced
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 180°C/fan 160°C/350°F/gas mark 4.
- Coat an ovenproof casserole dish with cooking spray, oil or butter and set aside.
- Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and shape into balls. Transfer the meatballs to the prepared dish and set aside until ready to use.
- Heat the cooking oil in a heavy-based saucepan and sauté the onions.
- Add the curry powder and flour and cook for 1 minute.
- Add the remaining ingredients, bring to the boil, cover and simmer for 10 minutes.
- Remove the saucepan from the heat and pour the sauce over the meatballs.
- Bake for 1½ hours or until cooked.
Notes
- Serve with rice or vermicelli, chutney, tomato and onions sambal, and some green beans.
- I found the sauce a bit astringent with the massive use of vinegar. My suggestion is to start off with 125ml (½ cup) of vinegar first and see what you think, then add more if you like.
- You can prepare this dish 1 day ahead and refrigerate until ready to taste.
- Malt vinegar was used.
- In this recipe, you can use any of these bay leaf substitutes instead if you're struggling to get a hold of any.
- Prep Time: 120 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
Nutrition
- Serving Size: 100g
- Calories: 94
- Sugar: 2.7 g
- Fat: 5.1 g
- Saturated Fat: 1.9 g
- Carbohydrates: 3.3 g
- Protein: 9.2 g
Krista
Oh my, I love African cuisine so much and this is GORGEOUS!!! Your photos are lovely, capturing the richness of the sauce, the heartiness of the meatballs and the delicate tangle of noodles. Beautiful. 🙂
Gawie Minnaar
Dit lyk moer lekker - my mond water sommer!
Daren Margetts
You've put in task 3 - "Combine all the ingredients in a bowl and shape into balls." All of them? Surely not! - In which case which ingredients?
Michelle
Daren: Thank you very much for pointing out my mistake. It has now been fixed on the page and the PDF file (for download).
Jeanne @ CookSister
Bananas don't do it for me, but yes - the fruit/meat/apricot jam thing is a dead giveaway for SA roots. All that's missing is a packet of brown onion soup 😉
Marisa
This looks phenomenal!! Great use of traditional SA flavours - my mond water saam met Gawie! 🙂
Marisa
Moet net se - het die nou al twee keer gemaak en dis 'n wenner!!
Alex
Step 5 says "Add the curry powder and flour and cook for 1 minute" however there is no mention of any flour in the ingredients list. What kind of flour and how much are we supposed to add? Thanks.
Michelle
Thanks, for pointing out the missing flour in the ingredients list. I've not updated the recipe. To err on the safe side I would use 15ml (1 tbsp) of flour to thicken the sauce. If you prefer sauce of thicker consistency, use a bit more flour. Happy cooking!
Alex
Thanks. Just cooked this for dinner. I followed your advice and only used half the vinegar and it was fantastic. V yummy recipe which I'll be using again 🙂
Michelle
That's marvellous news, Alex! Thanks so much for letting me know. 🙂
Jason
I'm making this again for a group event and it's still as phenomenal as I remember. I did cut down the vinegar to 1/2 cup per recommendation. Other modifications- I caramelized the onions and cut out the brown sugar since the sauce was sweet enough for my own taste. I think it'd be great with cayenne/some spicy pepper- but I'm keeping it non-spicy for others.
★★★★★
michelle
So happy to hear you love the recipe! Please keep in touch and happy cooking. 🙂
Susan
Stumbled across this recipe when I was looking for something to cook other than banana bread with my leftover banana's. A delicious meal which is sweet and savoury and also has a kick of curry.
★★★★★