Five simple tips to cook up an amazing bunny chow

Logie Moorgas of Eden Foods, a small takeaway shop in Edenvale, walked away as the winner of the “Best Bunny Chow in Jozi” cook-off at the Curry & Craft Festival at Gold Reef City last month.

Her award-winning dish? A bunny chow filled with a succulent slow-cooked lamb and potato curry and garnished with fresh herbs.

Moorgas, whose business is only a year old, was taught to cook from the age of nine by  her mother who ran her own eatery. 

“A happy atmosphere is my secret when it comes to cooking,” Moorgas says. “You’ve got to have a lot of fun when you’re in the kitchen; you’ve got to play with things and enjoy it – that’s when everything falls into place. When you’re angry in the kitchen your food doesn’t come out that good.”

Beyond good vibes, Moorgas shares her other secrets to creating a mouth-watering bunny chow:

1. SPICE IT UP

Freshly ground spices are my secret weapon. Once your spices have been ground, they have a three-week shelf life.

2. STEP BY STEP

Onion, spice, oil – you start with that and thereafter the meat and veggies are added. You allow the ingredients to cook first, the water comes in later. I would say 15 minutes into cooking my boiled water goes in. From there it’s a slow cook.

The standard time for a lamb curry is 45 minutes. Beef curry, if you’re using tender beef, cooks for the same time as the lamb. The maximum time for chicken curry, from start to finish, is 16 minutes, because chicken is softer.

3. CARBS, CARBS, CARBS

The bread you use is very important; the texture of the bread and the ingredients used to make it. As the bread holds the curry, some people think that it must be hard and stiff but it should be soft, fresh and fluffy.

Also, people don’t eat brown bread with bunny chow, it doesn’t complement it. Even if a person is on a diet, they still go for the white bread.

4. DON'T DIG TOO DEEP

Don’t go too deep into your bread [when creating a cavity to fill with curry]; you’ll find your curry spilling because you’re thinning the base of the loaf, especially when you’re not using bread with a hard outer shell.

5. PLATE IT UP 

The plating is as important as cooking the food. The one thing about all of this is that the gravy that must be thick, not watery. Your bunny should be soaked in gravy. If you don’t have that correct, it's not a bunny chow.

• Visit Eden Foods and Take Away on the corner of 9th Street and Van Riebeeck Avenue in Edenvale. It's open from 7am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, and from 8am to 1pm on Saturday