The Night of the Great Pochi!

Double, double, toil and trouble. Fire burn and cauldron bubble!

What be brewing there my pretties?  Eye of newt and boomslang skin?

Well, of course not silly, it's just a lovely pochi!  Or, more correctly, potjiekos.  But as Noel told us, in the Cape Coloured community, it's pronounced POH-CHEE instead of POYT-KEE.

Let me back back up.  Remember last week I posted my post-post modern riff on all things Kalk Bay?  Well, that same weekend, Noel's nephew Anton hosted a massive pochi-a-thon at his house.

Let me back up even further.  So, ever since my very first potjiekos, I have been enamored and in lurve!  I knew, I KNEW I was not leaving South Africa without my very own, 3-legged cast iron beauty.  So Aaron informed Santa of the deepest desire of my heart and I must have been a good girl this year because Santa brought me my very own potjiekos!

Actually, maybe I was a little naughty, because my potjiekos was a few days late ... in fact, I composed a little tune in honor of the event: ♫ On the third day after Christmas, my true love gave to me ... A three legged, cast-iron pochi! ♪

Santa also forgot to wrap it ... Oh Santa!

Have I digressed?  I've digressed.

Ahem.  So, when we celebrated New Year's with Noel and his family, we all got to talking about Christmas and I mentioned that I got a potjiekos.  And being the fabulous people-who-understand-a-girl-with-culinary-curiosity that they are, they instantly offered to give me a whole potjiekos (pochi!) lesson!

Come over next week they said, and bring your pochi!   So that we did ... and that brings us here:

They had already started on 2 other pochis!

And since my pochi had legs (Anton's didn't and could sit on the braai), she had to have her own, improvised hearth set up:

It's a three-pochi kind of a party!

While we waited for my pochi to warm up, we had some delicious, DEEElicious homemade koeksisters:

They are a typical South African pastry, but the kind I had had before were quite different:  soaked in syrup and no coconut.  Charmaine, Noel's sister who make the koeksisters explained to me that the Cape Coloured community has their own way of making them.

We also snacked on some sausages:

It was a beautiful evening:

And finally my pochi was warm enough to start cooking:

In the meantime, the other pochis were bubbling away:

Here's mine, in progress:

And here she is all done!:

All of the pochis were SO good.

They were all lamb, but each was spiced differently, had different vegetables, etc.  I did manage to get Anton's recipe for my favorite pochi of the night, which I'll be typing up and sharing this week.

Here we are in all our cheesy, blissed-out, pochi-happy glory!:

Thank you once again to Anton and his family and all of Noel's family for welcoming us -- once again -- into their homes and for sharing their wonderful food and traditions with us ... BAIE DANKIE!