Karoo wors- South Africa
Regional variant of boerewors with game (springbok, kudu, or ostrich) partly or wholly replacing beef. An artisanal product of the farms of the Karoo, the semi-desert whose arid pastures give the meat a distinct taste.
| Springbok or kudu meat, minced | 500 g |
| Lean beef, minced | 250 g |
| Beef fat, diced | 200 g |
| Pork fatback, minced | 50 g |
| Ground coriander | 15 g |
| Sea salt | 18 g |
| Ground black pepper | 4 g |
| Grated nutmeg | 2 g |
| Ground clove | 1 g |
| Wine vinegar | 25 ml |
| Worcestershire sauce | 15 ml |
| Natural beef or sheep casing | — |
- Mixing: Combine the meats and the fat. Add the coriander, salt, pepper, nutmeg, and clove. Moisten with the vinegar and the Worcestershire sauce. Work for 5 minutes.
- Resting: Cover and refrigerate for 2 hours.
- Stuffing: Fill the casings, forming one continuous spiral. Do not twist into portions: the wors is cooked as a whole spiral, laid on the grill.
- Cooking: Grill at the braai (the South African barbecue) over hardwood embers (camelthorn or rooikrans) for 15 to 20 minutes. Never prick the skin: the juice must stay inside.
- Serving: Serve in white bread (worsbroodjie) with mustard, tomato sauce and fruit chutney.
The Karoo wors is the regional variant of the boerewors in which game meat (springbok, kudu, oryx, or ostrich) partly or wholly replaces farmed beef. The framework of the 1990 regulation is respected (90 per cent meat minimum, coriander by traditional usage), but it is the raw material that changes everything.
The Karoo is a vast semi-desert expanse covering roughly a third of South Africa. It's dry scrub pastures, an aromatic vegetation of shrubs and succulents, that feed the herds of springbok, kudu and oryx. This diet gives the meat a herbaceous, faintly sweet flavour that farmed beef lacks. The Boer farms that have practised commercial hunting on their land since the nineteenth century progressively folded this game into their wors recipes.
Springbok meat, particularly lean cuts, requires a higher proportion of beef fat than standard boerewors to avoid drying out over the embers. Cooking is done at the braai over embers of the semi-desert’s hardwoods. The Karoo wors holds a place of prestige alongside ordinary boerewors on great occasions, since its raw material is game, making it a sought-after regional speciality.
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