For most of her life, 39-year-old Fikile Zungu worked as a maid. This reality however changed when she moved to Belgium to live with her partner in 2010. Although she continued to work as a cleaner at the South African Embassy in Belgium to support her family, her life took a complete turn when she offered to cook after the embassy’s chef resigned. Today Zungu is their resident cook. Sticking to her new healthy lifestyle, Zungu’s prepared a banting oxtail recipe.

Ingredients:

• 1 kg oxtail
• 4 celery sticks, chopped
• 2 leek sticks, chopped
• 1 large onion roughly chopped
• 1 large green pepper chopped in cubes
• 4 garlic cloves crushed
• 70 g garlic butter
• 2 tbsp coriander spice
• 2 tbsp turmeric powder
• 2 tbsp paprika spice
• 1 tsp garlic spice
• 1 tsp white pepper
• 1 handful coriander chopped
• 2 large tomatoes roughly chopped
• 400g canned kidney beans
• 20g canned mushrooms
• Salt to taste

Method

1. Melt the garlic butter in a pot.
2. In a big bowl, put the oxtail together with the veggies (except tomatoes) then spice and mix well.
3. On high heat, fry the oxtail and veggies in a big pot in the melted garlic butter for 10 minutes, then lower the heat and let it cook for 3 hours.
4. After the first 30 minutes, add the chopped tomatoes.
5. While the ingredients are cooking, make sure that you stir and taste for the flavour to make sure that the taste is balanced.
6. When the ingredients are almost cooked, turn up the heat of the stove to lessen the thickness. Do not add water.
7. After the oxtail stew is ready, add the kidney beans and mushrooms (drain the water from the cans).
8. Mix together and garnish with parsley.