Wonderbag - cooking in a fabric bag?
Would you believe that a fabric bag could cook your stew, soup, stew or beans to perfection? Without any gas or electricity, and no burnt food to boot!
The Wonderbag is an amazing South African invention used by rural as well as city dwellers, awesome as you can leave your dish in the bag, go to work and come back in the evening to a lovely hot meal! It is insulated with repurposed foam chips.
Ok, admittedly there is some gas or electricity required to start off this process, so this Mama will show you how to prepare a traditional South African dish in the amazing Wonderbag as taught by a dear old soul called Mary, who first worked for Gogo (granny) Lily and then in her latter years for Mama herself!
Samp & beans (Umgqusho in Xhosa) is a delicious, nourishing and inexpensive dish, a very popular staple dish in South Africa.
Samp is dried corn kernels that's stamped until it breaks open into chunky pieces; not stamped fine like corn rice or corn meal.
Red speckled beans and Samp
This dish can be cooked without meat, only adding vegetables and stock, but Mama loves cooking it with a nice piece of Beef Shin or Lamb Knuckles.
Firstly, measure approx 1 cup each dried beans and 1 cup Samp into a large pot, rinse in water a couple of times. Add plenty of hot water, and preferably leave to soak overnight.
Now anyone who knows Mama, also knows by now that she is always in too much of a rush to do that, so when she does the next step, she has to cook her samp & beans a tad longer :)
The following morning, add meat and more hot water or stock to cover the dried beans & samp, remembering that the liquid will evaporate quickly and may have to be replenished. Bring to a boil and cook for about 30 minutes.
Add enough salt plus the diced vegetables.
Continue boiling uncovered for about 15 min.
The next step must be done fast so that everything stays piping hot, do not remove the lid at this stage. Place into the Wonderbag, put fabric 'lid' on top, pull the drawstring tightly and leave your Wonderbag in a secluded corner in your kitchen, away from any drafts.
When you get home from work, you will have a gorgeous pot of deliciousness waiting for you.
Yummy heartwarming comfort food by Mama :)
Original Content by @lizelle
Please comment, upvote and resteem if you enjoyed Mama's Wonderbag cooking:)
Sounds very interesting! I don't think we have anything like the Wonderbag available here. I have a couple of slow cookers, but of course they need to be plugged in. It's hard to imagine how the food can continue to cook in the bag without adding heat to maintain the temperature!
It is amazing @anise! I find it works best for cooking pulses; beans, lentils etc, but important to keep the pot lid tightly sealed and immediately place it inside the wonderbag to retain the heat. It's insulated with repurposed foam chips, is fantastic as you don't have to watch it constantly when making soup or casseroles as the liquids do not evaporate, and a huge help for rural people who still don't have electricity! Also great for keeping food hot when going on picnics etc. One can order them online from various suppliers, my son ordered mine from yuppiechef.com. Thank you for stopping by :)
That's another great share.
Thanks for stopping by @upr :)
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This is really awesome. I didn't know about this. Very interesting. Thank you for sharing this @lizelle.
Thanks @jusipassetti, it really is fantastic! Great for keeping food warm when going on picnics as well!
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That is really neat. It would work well for keeping thing hot when you have a lot to cook like for a big meal and not enough burners on the stove. I am going to show this to the Mrs. and the girls. I have never seen one of these before.
I also know why I missed this post, this was just about the time we first came across each other and weren't really following each other like we do know since we both are part of the steemengine.
My son ordered mine online, worthwhile finding out if they deliver internationally & you're right, it is great for keeping food warm.
Yep, this was a long while back when I was using upvote bots to help boost my posts, very bad practice I know now!
Thank goodness for thesteemengine, I would not have found them if it wasn't for you mr Papper, they really give great support :)
We are all in this together for sure and I can't say enough good things about the people who are members and those that manage @thesteemengine , all real nice first class people and I am glad that we our both a part of that group.
I am going to look into that I can see plenty of uses for it for sure.