South African Curry, Bunny Chow!

Bunny chow is a dish that is very popular as a South African street food. Bunny chow is essentially bread with curry inside. The dish came to be when Africa was going through the apartheid, a time of racial segregation and discrimination. Bunny chow became a way to sell food to people of color who couldn’t eat in certain restaurants due to segregation. The bread was a holder for the curry so that nothing (no plates or utensils) needed to be returned.

Curry was brought to Africa by Indians came to Africa as indentured servants or passenger servants in the 19th century. African and Indian culture mixed to create bunny chow curry.

Back then they would use cheap ingredients, but over time the dish has morphed into more of a delicacy. 

Ingredients

1 pound chicken thighs or breast cut in bite-sized pieces

1/2 cup canola or cooking oil

2-3 Curry leaves

1 teaspoons minced ginger

2 teaspoons minced garlic

1 Tablespoon curry powder or more

1 medium onion(sliced)

2 medium tomatoes diced

1 cinnamon stick

1 1/2 teaspoon paprika

3 green cardamom pods lightly crushed

8 ounce or less potatoes cleaned and cut into cubes

1 15 ounce can chickpeas rinsed and drained

 ½ teaspoon cayenne pepper optional

11/2 cup or more chicken broth or water

Salt and pepper to your preference.

Loaf of bread of your choice

Directions

First, chop your potatoes, garlic, ginger, chicken, and tomatoes.

Then put oil, onions, garlic, ginger, cinnamon stick, curry leaves, cardamom pods, and curry powder in a saucer pan or pot. The pot will help later when you add the broth so if you want to keep it in one dish you can cook these in it. I started with a saucer pan then once they were cooked moved it to the pot. 

Stir on and off until the onions start to look translucent, then add chicken and tomatoes. You can tell when chicken is cooked when it turns white.

If you are cooking in the saucer pan to start now would be the time to put it in a pot. After this add your chickpeas, potatoes, and chicken broth. Let simmer for about 25 min then it’s done!

To plate, take a loaf of bread and cut out the middle; then put curry into it. Fair warning, the bread gets a little soggy so put it on a plate to avoid spills.

I don’t like soggy bread, so I just put the curry in a bowl and ate it with slices of bread.

Overall, I liked this dish. It didn’t quite have as much flavor as I thought it would and I don’t know if it was just that recipe or not. It was still good though and really fast and easy to make.