Bunny chow

Preheat the oven to 180°C. Heat the oil in a large casserole dish and sauté the onions, spices, chillies, ginger and garlic until fragrant. Add the lamb and cook until coloured.

Add the tomatoes, kumara, water and salt and pepper to taste, then bring to a simmer. Cover with a lid, transfer to the oven and cook for 2 hours, giving it a stir at half-hour intervals and adding more water if necessary.

Prepare the bread ‘bowls’. If using a standard white loaf, cut into either halves or quarters along the length of the loaf. Cut a square cavity out of the top of each piece of bread, reserving the scooped-out bread. If using rolls, cut the tops off and scoop out (and reserve) the bread to form a cavity.

Fill the bread ‘bowls’ with a generous portion of curry, garnish with fresh coriander and serve with the scooped-out bread to dip into the curry (see Cook's Notes). Alternatively, give each guest an unfilled bread 'bowl' and let them help themselves to curry. If preferred, enjoy the richly flavoured curry on rice.

Cook's note Bunny chow is a classic street food from Durban, South Africa. Created by the area’s large Indian community, it’s a wonderful example of how migrant populations adapt their traditional foods to suit their environment. There are various stories behind its creation and name ('bunny' is thought to be derived from 'bania', an Indian caste), but essentially they invented a portable meal solution which serves as curry, container and cutlery! The scoopedout bread from the centre of the loaf is used as a dipper and pieces of the loaf are then broken off and used as a scoop. Forks can be issued for the faint-hearted! The dish traditionally used a vegetable curry, but is now also available with lamb, beef or chicken. In Durban, customers order bunny chow by its size and flavour – for example, ‘quarter mutton’ or a ‘half chicken’ and it may come wrapped in yesterday’s newspapers, much like our fish and chips once were.

Article from the September, 2011 issue of Taste magazine .