Bunny Chow

Bunny chow is an authentic South African street food, made from spicy lamb curry served in half a loaf of hollowed out bread.  No rabbits were harmed in the making of this recipe!

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What is a bunny chow

If you’ve never tasted a Bunny Chow before, then you are in for a treat.  This is a deliciously spicy lamb curry served in a hollowed out loaf of bread.  The gravy soaks into the bread making it unbelievably tasty.  There is a saying that half a loaf is better than no bread – well, I’ve just updated it to be half a loaf filled with lamb curry is better than anything.

A Bunny Chow has nothing to do with rabbits

Contrary to what you might imply from the name, there are no rabbits in a bunny chow.  The name actually originated from the Durban Indian population, known as ‘Banya’.   Chow is if course just another name for food.  So Banya Chow became Bunny Chow.

The Indian population of Durban were mainly farm workers working on the sugarcane fields. As there were no shops close by the sugarcane fields, they had to take their lunch with them to work. So the dish itself probably evolved out of the necessity to carry a sloppy curry to work for lunch, without a container.  A hollowed out loaf of served the purpose very well.

Bunny Chow has now become a favourite South African street food available at most corner cafes. In addition to lamb, this curry is also made with beef, or chicken, or even goat.

Supper with Mel and Joe

I was telling my new English friends, Mel and Joe, about bunny chows and they were eager to try them.  So I invited them round for supper to show them just how delicious they are.

The flavour of the curry improves with standing, so I made it in advance, which gave me time to introduce Mel and Joe to our Amazon Echo Dot aka Alexa.

Alexa is a voice-activated smart speaker that you can use for listening to music. In addition, you give it simple instructions such as ‘give me the weather forecast’, or ‘give me a recipe for bunny chows’, or ‘tell me a joke’. You can also use it to control smart appliances around your house. So provided you have it connected, you can set it to turn on the lights at a certain time, or even ask it to switch the kettle on to make a pot of tea.

Mel had great fun asking for all her favourite songs.  When the conversation got a bit loud and Alexa didn’t play the song Mel had asked for,  Mel said ‘Alexa, are you deaf?’. Alexa responded ‘No I am not deaf’.

Ever polite, at the end of the evening, Mel called out ‘Night Alexa’ to which Alexa responded ‘Goodnight, see you tomorrow’.

Ingredients for a Bunny Chow

Whenever I read a recipe I like to have a look at the ingredients to see whether I have everything I need. To make it easy for you – I’ve listed the ingredients below. You can get the full list of ingredients and instructions to make this recipe on the printable recipe card further down in the post.

Filling

• Loaves of bread – you will need a 1/2 unsliced loaf per person. My local supermarket does small whole loaves which are an ideal size. If you can only get a large loaf, then you could cut into thirds, or even quarters.
• Cubed lamb – I like to buy a leg of lamb from the butcher and get him to debone it for me. Then I cube the lamb myself. That way I can control the sizes of the lamb cubes.
• Sunflower Oil used to sear the lamb
• Chicken or Lamb stock if required, for additional liquid if the curry is too dry. You can use a stock cubeto make it if you don’t have fresh stock.

Vegetables

The following vegetables should all be cut into small dice, approximately 1cm in size.

• Potatoes
• Onions
• Tomatoes
• Carrots
• Red Pepper

Spices and seasonings

These spices are used to add the curry flavouring. You will probably find you already have most of them in your cupboard .

• Hot Curry Powder
• Garam Masala
• Mustard Seeds
• Fennel Seeds
• Turmeric
• Ground Coriander
• Garlic
• Ginger
• Chilli paste
• Tomato Paste
• Chutney
• Worcestershire Sauce
• Sugar
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

How to make a bunny chow

Prepare the bread cases

• Cut the loaves in half.
• Remove the bread from the centre of each loaf. To do this, run a sharp knife down the inside of each edge, forming a square in the loaf.  Try to keep about half an inch away from each edge. 
• Now gently insert your fingers down one side and pull the bread away from the bottom.  Aim to leave about 1cm of bread all round.
• Be careful not to cut through, otherwise it will leak when you add the curry. You can toast the bread in the oven if you like, or leave it soft.  The choice is yours.
• Keep the removed bread for dipping in the sauce as you eat the bunny chow.
• You can also turn any unused bread into breadcrumbs by blitzing it in the food processor. Freeze the crumbs in a ziploc bag for later use.

Make the curry

• Chop the lamb into approxiately 2cm cubes.
• Heat the oil in a wok and brown the lamb until it is no longer pink.   Do this in batches, don’t overcrowd the pan or the meat will release too many juices and boil rather than brown.
• Remove the browned meat from the pan and set aside.
• Add the onions and red peppers to the pan, and let them fry until the onions are translucent. 
• Now add the spice ingredients and tomatoes, and fry them with the onions until the tomatoes release their juices and become mushy.  I cover with a lid at this stage and let them sweat their juices out.

Transfer to pressure cooker

• Put the browned meat and the vegetables into your electric pressure cooker, add 1 cup of stock and let it cook on the meat setting for 15 minutes
• If you don’t have an electric pressure cooker, you can just leave everything in the wok, add the stock, cover and let simmer until the meat is tender.  It will probably take about 35 to 40 minutes.  Check every now and then to ensure it does not dry out. If it does start to dry out, add more stock.
• You could even use a traditional pressure cooker – just check the manufacturer’s instructions for the length of time you should cook the lamb.
• Release the steam on the pressure cooker and test for flavour.  This is where I normally make adjustments.  If it needs sweetness, add more chutney.  If it needs more bite, add more chilli.
• Finally, add the potatoes and give it another 10 minutes in the pressure cooker.

Serve

• Ladle the mixture into the pre-prepared bread cases, serve and enjoy. 
• You can serve the centre bits of bread on the side to mop up the juices.
• I like to serve a sambal on the side, made with 2 chopped tomatoes and 1 finely chopped onion, mixed with 2 tablespoons white vinegar, 1 teaspoon sugar and 1/2 teaspoon salt.

Can I freeze a Bunny Chow?

You can freeze the cooked curry, but don’t freeze it in the bread cases – make those fresh when you need them.  

You can keep the curry for up to three months in a suitable container in the freezer.

To use, allow to defrost for a few hours in the fridge, or defrost it in the microwave.

Heat in a saucepan on the stove until piping hot.

What can I do with leftovers?

There is so much you can do with leftover lamb curry.

• Turn it into delicious snackwiches. Chop up any large lumps of meat, spoon the curry between 2 slices of buttered bread and pop it into your snackwich iron. If you don’t have a snackwich, check the equipment section below for details.
• Make curried dough balls – if you’ve run out of vetkoek, you can make instant vetkoek using a simple 2-ingredient dough. Click the link for details.
• Serve any left over curry on a bed of rice for a quick and easy supper. You could accompany this with a salad made from chopped onions, tomatoes sprinkled with a tablespoon of chopped fresh coriander leaves.

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Additional resources

Don’t forget to check out my handy Cookery Conversion Calculator if you want to convert any of your recipe measurements from grams to cups, ounces, tablespoons or millilitres and vice versa. You can also use the calculator for converting oven temperatures between Fahrenheit, Celsius and Gas marks.

If you live at a high altitude you may find you need to adjust your baking recipes to compensate for this. You can read all about it in this post on baking at high altitudes.

Recipe – Bunny Chow

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