TGIFOOD
Lockdown Recipe of the Day: Porcupines
I lost my heart to these little mince-and-rice frikkadels in a flavourful tomato sauce when I first saw the recipe in a book from the Thirties. While it is simmering, the white tips of the uncooked rice swell up and look just like porcupine quills.
The original recipe appeared a century ago, during the First World War, in an American community recipe book. Using this book during the Depression, home cooks showed what could be done with limited rations and tinned tomato soup. Shortly thereafter it also appeared in our country, cropping up in community recipe books from the 1930s to the 1980s, particularly in books from schools from Steynsburg and Napier to Bellville, Bloemfontein and Brackenfell.
Porcupines also appear in What for Supper?, published in the jubilee year of the CPWAA (VLV-Kaapland). Mrs AJ Muller flavours the tomato with cinnamon and cloves. If you want to be more adventurous, I’ve provided a few ideas.
(Serves 4–6)
Ingredients
30 ml oil
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 whole cloves
2.5 ml ground cinnamon
1 tin (400 g) cream of tomato soup or tomato purée (passata) 125 ml water
5 ml salt
2.5 ml pepper
pinch of sugar to taste (the old recipe says 30 ml, but nowadays
we prefer less sweetness)
500 g beef mince
125 ml uncooked rice
30 ml Worcestershire sauce
salt and pepper to taste
chopped fresh parsley or torn basil for garnishing
Method
Heat the oil over moderate heat and fry half the onion until soft and transparent. Add half the garlic, the cloves and cinnamon (and extra spices, if using) and sauté for 1 minute. Add the tomato soup or purée, water, salt, pepper and sugar, then heat until it starts simmering.
Make the frikkadels while the sauce is simmering: Using a fork, lightly combine the mince, rice, the remaining onion and garlic, Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Roll into small frikkadels. Place them in the sauce and simmer, covered with a lid, until the rice is cooked, 45–60 minutes, or in the oven for 60–90 minutes at 180°C. Remove the lid for the final 15 minutes. Remember to remove the whole cloves, garnish with chopped herbs and serve on mashed potatoes.
Bring it up to date
- A few drops of honey will cut through the sharp sourness of tinned tomato soup.
- For a Moroccan flavour, add the following spices while frying the onion: 5 ml smoked or sweet paprika, 2.5 ml cumin and 2.5 ml ground ginger.
- Use fresh herbs instead of the spices, or garnish with a few drops of basil oil.
- For variation, use brown rice or quinoa instead of white rice.
- With a pressure cooker, you have food on the table in half an hour. Carefully place the raw frikkadels in the sauce and spoon some of the sauce over them. Secure the lid of the pressure cooker and cook at high pressure for 10 minutes. Release the steam quickly according to the instructions.
Van die hand na die mond. Monument parish, Bloemfontein; What for Supper?, CPWAA, 1954. DM/TGIFood
From Share, by Errieda du Toit, published by Struik Lifestyle. Photography by Ian du Toit.
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