Introduction
Good day to everyone on Hive and #Foodiesbeehive! This is my first and probably not my last post about making food. I actually enjoy making food in the kitchen and so does my partner .
Today I am going to run through a bit of treat food, the gatsby. In Cape Town, South Africa these can be found in takeaway eateries and fish & chip shops. The main premise is that there is a large roll filled with chips and other toppings.
In those shops, you will find a massive variety of toppings but mostly it will be chips, a salad, and meat like polony, vienna, sausage, chicken, fish or steak. Infrequently there are alternatives or combos but mostly this is the rundown on the menus in 80% of all the takeaway places in the Province.
Home-made excellence!
What I will be making for us today is something special and a bit of a spoil. My only regret is not finding a wider loaf of bread. I managed to get a french loaf from the local grocery store, which did the job just fine.
The result is something amazing, tasty, and super filling. We ate ours on a movie night in our new home in Table View.
Ingredients
What you will need to make the same:
- 1x French Loaf (or any big loaf of bread)
- 1x Bag of ready-cut chips (or make your own)
- 4x Onions
- 3x Tomatoes
- Chopped Garlic
- 1x Pack of Cheese Grillers
- 2x Packs of Bacon
- Cheese as needed
- Mixed Herbs as needed
- Salt - In my case I used braai spice
- Sweet Chili Sauce
- Sweet Jalapeno Sauce
You could make a gatsby with all sorts of things and the possibilities are endless! I usually make my own chips by peeling and cutting potatoes but this time I went simple since I had plenty of work to do.
What is most important is that you have a roll with chips on it and the topping of your choice. What you do with the rest is up to you. Let me show you what I did with mine!
Preparation - brazing onion, garlic and tomatoes
The first thing to do is get the oil ready heated in a pot and when the chips start bubbling immediately once they touch the oil, the oil is hot enough to throw the whole lot in.
Meanwhile, you get the onions and the tomatoes ready. Onions are peeled and topped and tailed. Tomatoes are cut fairly small. Both of these will shrink so do not worry about the volume that you start with.
Onions go in the pan with a bit of oil. I left my onions as rings but this is not too important as they will get soft during the brazing.
I had as my little helper stirring and brazing that onion while I chopped the tomatoes.
I added some chopped garlic to the onions once they are brazed enough, then added the tomatoes.
There we go! This is what it looks like! This is pretty much a tomato and onion relish that South Africans would use for boerie rolls, more about those in another post! This pan can now be put on another plate on low heat just to keep it warm.
Preparation - The Meat
NOTE Obviously, this particular version of a gatsby will not be for you if you do not eat pork. Swap it out for beef, chicken, and lamb. Vegetarian or Vegan, swap out with your favorite toppings. You could probably get away with everything that you would have put on a pizza and just make your own style of gatsby of your choosing!
Because this is a gatsby, you want the meat on the roll to be small. When a person bites into this, there will be a roll to get through as well as chips (fries) and having a big slab of meat on will just not do!
The sausages were chopped and the bacon diced. Both of these were done in a pan. Cooked and browned. Again, my son gave me a hand. This is how they learn! Good job my boy!
Preparation - The Sauce
Here we go adding a lot of spicy flavor. This is something that you can do according to your tastes. I did half Sweet Chili and half Sweet Jalepeno.
I then added mixed herbs and grated cheese!
Assembly - On a roll!
Now it is time to put the whole lot together. All the little projects around the kitchen are ready to be added to the final product.
The chips are removed from the oil and left to drain. Then be slice and butter our roll.
We then start with our sauce layer.
We then add the hot chips! Melt that cheese!
We then add our tomato and onion relish.
Then comes the meat.
And finally more cheese! Can't go wrong there!
The result
Finally, the gatsby is chopped up into pieces and shared out to the family. We get together at the table with our drinks and get ready to watch some Stranger Things.
One thing is for certain: You will not find this special Gatsby in a shop in Cape Town and if you did, it would be very expensive!
In the picture from left to right are ,
, and
.
This meal was made a couple of weeks before, but I never had a chance to show it off. Looking at the pictures now just makes me hungry for another one and I am wondering what other exciting toppings I could try?
Thank you for reading this post. I hope I got you feeling hungry!
Please let me know what you think would make a good topping to try and we can see about doing one like that in the future!
Cheers!