It’s a little haven for South Africans on the tourist road north out of Brisbane. Matilda Scarfe’s Fig Tree Cottage, near Maleny, Qld is a shop, restaurant and café specialising in South African delicacies. Little known to non-natives, South African fare offers an interesting blends of Malay-style spices with fruits, chutneys and European style meats.

For a typical South African get-together you would have to have boerewors - a pure meat farmer’s sausage - made in fat coils. Boerewors is the centrepiece of any braai fest (that’s South African for barbecue) but Matilda likes to add her specialty, potjiekos (pron. Poi-ki-kos) - braised meat cooked with spices, vegetables and meat in a cast iron African pot (or potjie).

The best place to cook potjiekos is in a kettle barbecue or Weber. And it’s served with mealie pap (a cornmeal mush a little like white polenta).