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The five ingredient potjie

The famous five ingredient skaap potjie: potatoes, onions, green beans, lamb and a yellow blanket of Aromat. No liquid, no stirring, no stress.
Print Recipe
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 3 hours
Total Time 3 hours 20 minutes
Servings: 6 people
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: South African
Ingredients Method Notes

Ingredients
  

  • 5 potatoes, sliced into discs
  • 5 brown onions, cut into rings
  • 500 g frozen green beans one standard bag
  • 2 kg lamb shanks and diced stewing lamb ask the butcher for forequarter for the diced part
  • Knorr Aromat a generous amount, until each layer lies yellow

Method
 

  1. Pack half the potato slices over the bottom of the potjie.
  2. Layer half the onion rings on top of the potatoes.
  3. Pack half the meat on top of the onions.
  4. Scatter half the green beans over the meat.
  5. Season with Aromat until the layer lies properly yellow. This is the recipe’s only spice and its whole personality.
  6. Repeat the layers from the potatoes up, and finish with another yellow blanket of Aromat.
  7. Add no other liquid. None. The onions and the meat make their own, and that is the whole trick.
  8. Put the lid on and set the pot on gentle coals, nothing fierce. Do not stir. Not once, not even a little.
  9. When the beans on top are cooked, everything below them is cooked too. Expect around 3 hours on gentle coals.

Notes

The cooking time is an estimate; the beans on top are the real timer, exactly as the original recipe intends. Keep the coals gentle and resist lifting the lid more than you must. A size 3 potjie suits these quantities.