Good day, all my friends on Hive and especially to all my Foodie and braai enthusiasts out there. The braai is an essential food-making and social gathering event in South Africa. It is not merely the cooking process, but the event itself is something that you share with other people.
Out of all the different cooking methods out there, this one is popular but it is essentially exclusively a DIY thing. There is no restaurant or take-away delivery service that brings you braai meats and sides to eat because THAT would not be a braai!
A braai means fire and drinks clinking, a braai means music (live guitar or on the sound system, or both), and braai means social visits or family time. You could braai with wood or briquettes, sometimes even a gas braai, and the event around that food will be a social one.
I like to braai with wood. People gather around its warmth and there is time to talk to one another. On a more quiet evening, you can enjoy staring into the dancing flames while you sip your drink and relax.
But what if you actually do not have that much time? Sometimes you need to prepare for a braai in advance but you just want to do a quick one. Here is how I did mine!
A True Hack
A lot of time when someone says "life-hack", they often show some silly but obvious thing and often a downright extra-steps method that gets Khaby to look at them like:
But let me explain why my braai hack is a real hack.
It is the tail end of winter in Cape Town and that means lots of rain preparing for spring. My big stack of wood, though put in the sun for a day, is still pretty wet. When the wood is wet and the evening is cold, it takes longer to make coals to braai with and the coals do not last long.
Added to that, I have a thick piece of "texan" pork steak to braai. Which carries a deep note of concern if you do not have the confidence that the coals will last long enough to really cook that steak evenly.
Of course, the danger with pork is undercooking that meat and getting salmonella. I could have canceled the braai, but I had a plan!
Marinading time!
Right, first off, that pyrex bowl looks terrible in this photo. I inspected it closely and found the inside very clean, but the outside had accumulated grime. 
Anyway, you will see why this does not matter soon enough! Pork chop in the bowl. Some left over braai spice.... hmmm not enough. Pork needs salt.
So I used a bit of regular salt over that and then added spice. Since I had run out of other spices, I used what I had on hand... Tandoori Spice. Not a usual braai thing but I like to experiment with different things!
Then good old Braai Sauce went over this. This stuff you usually baste your meat with while you are braaing but also makes an excellent marinade.
Knowing that I am braaing for a family of 5, I needed a bit of extra meat and got a pack of Bosman Braai sausage from our local PnP.
I decided that the sausage will join the pork in the marinade.
And I covered it with the rest of the marinade.
A little bit of boiling water from the kettle and a good shake and you can get the rest of this sticky stuff out of this bottle. The extra moisture does help to spread it out and will evaporate soon enough!
Because I stuck that sucker in the over on a low heat, somewhere between 50C and 100C (122F - 212F). This is to give the pork a bit of an equal heat and give it a slight cook before it goes on the fire. I then do not need to have to worry about needing to cook it really long on the fire AND the heat will assist with the pork absorbing the marinade.
Braai salads can also take some time to make and she had songs to write!
This is the result on the pork. Looks yummy already but don't get me wrong, still raw. Time to braai!
The coals are ready, spread out and the grid has been brushed.
On goes the porky. Now you see the curve of the meat is done because the layer of fat shrinks. Simply take a knife and cut that through.
The sausage went on and off again and the pork was nearly done when I added the garlic bread to the coals. These guys are a skill all on their own to master. Undercook garlic bread and its mushy, overcook and burn it. What you want is to lightly toast the outside so its a little bit harder and then the inside all the butter and garlic is melted.
The trick is like dads knowing if a watermelon is ripe - by the sound when you slap it... with your tongs.
The proof is in the tasting!
Look at that! Pork cooked with a crispy fat layer, full of flavour, garlic bread with the toast outside and the sausage almost fell apart but was still juicy inside! Wonderful!
Another successful braai! Until next time!
