Bonsmara–our cattle of choice

Two years ago Herman decided he would like to get some cattle to wander about the backlands. Our neighbour on the backfence Oom Piet , a third generation farmer, had some Bonsmara to sell. Beautiful, chocolate brown cows with soft eyes and gentle natures.

Bonsmara are a South African breed of cattle. In the 1930′s there was a need for a breed of cattle that would thrive in the sub-tropical regions of Natal and the Transvaal and be good meat producers. The exotic British cattle had the desired growth and breeding but didn’t perform in the hotter climate and were very suseptible to the tick borne diseases. The indigenous Afrikaaner cattle were disease resistant and handled the heat well, however they didn”t have the desired growth potential, developed late sexually and didn’t calve regularily.

A breeding programme was set up where they took five different British bulls and bred them with Afrikaaner cows. They had good results with the Hereford and Shorthorn crossbreeds, which they further mated with  3/4 Afrikaaners to get 5/8 Afrikaaner and 3/8 Hereford or Shorthorn–the result being the Bonsmara (named after ”Bonsma” a man involved in the breeding and “Mara” the name of the farm they were bred on). 

Seventy-five  years later the Bonsmara is a efficient, productive beef  breed that is disease resistant, low maintenance, highly adaptable,  has low calf mortality and good fertility.

It was also in our favour to get the cattle from our neighbour as it meant we could just open the gate inbetween us and allow the cattle to come through–no transport costs, no stress on the cattle and they would  be very used to the diseases in this area making them hardy and resistant.

A short note on Oom Piet–our neighbour who sold us the Bonsmara–pictured on the left.  He is 84 years old and was born and has lived on his farm all his life. He cleared the farm by hand from Rooikrans and farms with cattle and thatch. When we first met him he was 82 and had just bought a new stallion–to ride and tame himself. He is a living legend, his farm a legacy to hardwork and perserverance, a dying out generation when people had to be innovative and resourceful  to survive. They lived above and below the law, their farm was their world and they made the rules. Pioneering spirits, when “men ran with the wolves” and in Oom Piet’s case with a very naughty twinkle in those very blue eyes! 

On the right is a photograph taken on the day we took delivery of the cattle. With Herman is Oom Piet and his son. The cattle were rounded up and then tagged on the ear (our first experience of seeing a neck clamp in action). Quite an experience, keep in mind these are not tame milk cows but cattle that roam free on the veld.

There were then herded off to our fence line by one of the labourers riding a pony with very skew ears with a lot of attitude and keen to show off his cowboy skills.

They settled in well and have been breeding fantastically, the first lot we bought were all pregnant. We then bought a magnificient bull who has been very happy up there with all his ladies doing his duty. We are on to our third lot of calves–so our little herd is growing nicely. Below are a few pics of these gorgeous  creatures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the right is a picture of a three day old calf born on our farm. The mothers hide them away in the bushes for about a week and it is almost impossible to find them. We were very lucky to see this one.

It is still such a thrill when we go riding into the backlands to spot the cattle, it is like seeing game. With the sun glistening on their rich, brown hides. Sleek and beautiful, passing silently through the bushes or stopping to look at us inquisitively.

Processing our first ox

I wrote a while ago about the first ox that we had slaughtered. And that it was hanging in the cool room for 2 weeks–maturing. After the 2 weeks we got one of the local guys who works at the butchery to come and help us cut the specific cuts. Out came the rump and sirloin steaks as well as the fillets. We also processed 20kg of steak mince and then the work REALLY started. Now this was a 440kg Bonsmaras ox that slaughtered out to 220kg!

Herman and I spent a good couple of days surrounded with piles of raw meat. (it wasn’t as bad as it sounds). Herman cut all the meat off the bones and I cut it into cubes and packed it into 2.5kg packs. I have never seen so much meat in my life. While cutting all this up instead of feeling “yuk–raw meat–etc–etc.” I found myself thinking about themes like sacrifice, how the ox had been sacrificed–I know the essence of it lives on but I felt  honoured to be able to use it’s body.  There was also no moral judgement in that we had killed this animal to eat (also no inner conflict), it felt neither “good” nor “bad” but just the way it is. The animal was able to exhibit normal behaviour in it’s life, freedom of movement, no stress and freedom to eat natural food. I actually started enjoying working with the raw meat, enjoying the smell and the texture, enjoying this gift from the ox.(not bad for an ex-vegetarian).

The next step was to make some wors. Herman got a “secret” recipe from a “tannie” who used to supply wors and traditional farm produce through a farmstall she had just closed down. We felt like alchemists, grinding and mixing the spices. Then, with our hands, mixing it into the cubes of fresh meat, letting it rest, cutting spek by hand , mixing that with the meat and then mincing it coarsly—we felt as if we were involved with some forgotten secret or long-lost past  known only to our fore-fathers. 

Our R50 wors stopper kept us going until late into the night, but we ended up with 30kgs of the most delicious wors, packed into 500 gram packs and stacked into the freezer. We still have about 90kgs to go–we decided to freeze the cubed meat and distribute our first batch to future customers so they can taste and experience this truly free-range, organic and hand-made sausage!! The plan being to make up the rest and deliver directly within the month.

I suppose I better get cracking on a Rusfontein Wors label!

An added note, the mince is WOW and the sirloin we kept whole. We cooked it like a fillet for a dinner party–I have never tasted such amazing beef before. So now our house freezer, the butchery chest freezer and the extra freezer are all full–of beef. I never realised how much meat came from a cow/ox.  Nothing was wasted all the bones were cut up and all the other bits the labourers took—we feel smug about that, knowing nothing was thrown away and every bit of this magnificient creature was utilised.

Next time we want  to be a bit cleverer with the different cuts of meat that one can do with beef.

Our First Ox

Last week we had a situation we needed to address. One of our young oxen (tollie) hadn’t been properly castrated and had one very virile testicle. Our prize older bull was having to compete with him for the cows coming into season. This ended up with them chasing each other and the cows,  thoroughly upsetting them all. This could mean we’d possibly lose the opportunity to have the cows covered or them getting injured in the process. So the decision was taken to “take the young ox out”. We had previously tried to take him to be slaughtered, wanting to try our hand at the meat thing and he had jumped right over the two meter railing on the bakkie, hit the ground running and disappeared into the veld.

As the cattle live in the “backlands” they roam the 630 hectares far and wide and live a beautifully peaceful existence. We decided that in would be best to shoot him out there and then bring him down to work the meat. This would be the least stress for him (and us).

Herman has a good aim and was able to bring him down with one shot. The trouble was to load him onto the back of the bakkie—well there was six of us and we couldn’t budge him.(a dead weight of 300+kgs)  Luckily we have builders working on the guest house at the moment so we could get four more strong men to help. With a lot of effort we were able to lift him onto the bakkie and drive him down to the “butchery”.

I am not going to go into the details of skinning an ox, disembowling and cutting up but that is what we did. A lot of work and very interesting, a very real lesson in anatomy, once you get over the beginning feelings of squeamishness.

The ox is then cut into four and hung in the cooler room for two weeks to mature. Thereafter we can process it. This means to mince, make wors and cut steaks. We seriously need to get our wors recipe up to scratch and see if we can borrow a larger wors stopper.

Making Wors

Wors–sausage

Boerewors–Farmer’s Sausage and what every South African living overseas dreams about–hot coals, a beer in one hand and that sizzling smell of a “boerie” been thrown on an open fire.  A  juicy, fat  sausage that explodes in your mouth when bitten into.

There are lots of different receipes for Boerewors, most include spices such as coriander seeds, cloves, pepper and vinegar or Worstershire sauce. Almost all of the receipes also call for a Butcher’s spice–this we realised is the secret ingredient as this contains a fair amount of MSG  with salt, a little bit of spices and then bulked out with cereal (wheat).

Herman has been wanting to make his own wors for a while and has been collecting all the different spices and ingredients as well as pre-packaged Boerewors spice to try figure out the specific spices without the MSG. One thing we have figured out is that Boerewors bought from a butcher or a supermarket can contain anything (all offcuts and as our neighbour kindly put–ears and ovaries)  what makes it taste good is the spice mix (and the MSG?)

So–can Herman make a good tasting Boerie without MSG and flavour enhancers? The history of Boerewors (according to Wiki) is that it originated from our Dutch descendants in Limburg–a poorer community that had a lot of game  in their diet and used all the animal parts in their food. When it became South African is unsure but it was being made before the Great Trek in the 1830′s as the Voortrekkers used to dry the Boerewors (droewors) to take with them. Obviously the recipes have changed and evolved over the years but what seems to stay constant is the coriander seeds, vinegar , spek (pig fat) and natural pig intestines for casings. Coriander seeds, black pepper, nutmeg and cloves where all available in the Cape Colony perhaps this was the major influence for the specific flavour of Boerewors.

Today was the day to try this out. Herman had bought 6kgs of beef and 4kgs of pork and packed out all his packets of spices, salt, bulk Worstershire sauce, brown vinegar, coriander seeds and pre-packed spices. Sitting with his everpresent calculator( to work out amounts and weights) with all the researched recipes we had accumulated, we set to work.

The first job was to get all the meat coarsly minced–luckily the small bandsaw that Herman got from a local has an attachment for mincing. In no time at all, with the help of Regan and his friend Peter, we had trays of freshly minced beef and pork. Herman was working on a ratio of 3:2 (beef to pork). 

 

 

It was decided that everyone could make their own kilogram of wors, using their own unique blend of herbs and spices. Once each kilogram was mixed and stuffed into the casing (Herman bought a sausage stopper at an auction for R50) we fried it and sacrificed it to the “taste panel”–pre-teens are ruthless!!!

Herman had first attempt–and got a 4 out of 10—too much like a beef sausage and a bit bland. We than added chopped spek to the next batch and Regan and Peter’s sausage scored higher respectively–around 7. Keya spent a long time with the morter and pestle and ended up with a very nicely spiced sausage and scored an 8. Unfortunately she is unable to remember her secret, personal recipe so it will forever remain a secret. I was busy ploughing through baskets of plums, making plum jam so I opted out of the Boerie Competition.

Herman and I finished up the last kilos with a mix of 1:1 beef to pork with extra toasted and ground coriander seeds added. It tastes good but the texture isn’t quite right–still too much like a beef sausage. The next batch we will try more handcut spek, larger casings (we were using sheep and the sausage was a bit thin) next time we will use pig intestines (yes—natural casings really are intestines stored in salt!!!) , the meat also needs to be more coarsly ground and we need to be more heavy handed with the spices.

On the left is a photo of Regan excited about stopping his unique Boerewors and on the right is Keya using her feet to hold the mortar while she is busy with her own special recipe.

A fun family day all round, resulting in a freezer packed with wors.

Conclusion–if we want to slaughter one of our Bonsmaras and work the meat ourselves we need to be more organised and have a mechanical sausage stopper as 300kgs is a whole lot more than 10!!