Jarateng Pulls Off First Whole Roasted Ostrich in Africa
Katlego Isaacs | Tuesday June 28, 2022 04:55
Jarateng’s ‘Chicks on Fire’ event was designated as an all you can eat braai occasion to demonstrate various methods of braaing and smoking chicken, duck, and guinea fowl with ostrich as the headline bird.
In spite of all of the juicy and tender smoked birds that continuously found their way into the attendee’s stomachs, all eyes were on the ostrich.
Following two weeks of searching for suppliers, a total cook time of 28 hours; 24 hours in a homemade smoker and 4 hours on the braai, the stakes were high for the owner of Jarateng, Kaelo Sabone, to deliver on his promise of the first whole roasted ostrich in Africa.
In an interview with Showtime, Sabone expressed his extreme anxiety that the enormous ostrich would come out unevenly cooked, chewy and tough all the way until the final unveiling of the bird from the aluminium wrappings to a large crowd of spectators that gasped in unison to see the bird fall right off the bone.
“When people kept asking me when is the ostrich coming out, I honestly did not want to take it out. I thought it wasn’t going to be done, it’s not going to be ready,” Sabone said.
“We decided to take a gamble at the 28th hour, and I pressed it, it felt ready so we took it out. When we unveiled it my fears were sorted,” he said.
Sabone’s relief was well met after spending two weeks anxiously searching for the ostrich while researching whether smoking a whole ostrich had ever been attempted by someone.
“We started off the idea as a joke honestly, then we went online and found out that only some Americans in Vietnam had tried to smoke a whole ostrich and it didn’t turn out too well,” Sabone said.
“We decided to try our luck and went out looking for an Ostrich for about two weeks on social media until we found Patrick from Brahman Butchery in Phakalane who agreed to supply us with a whole fresh ostrich,” he said.
Sabone stated that in spite of all his fears, the ostrich came out much better than originally anticipated, and even better than the benchmark they used from the Americans in Vietnam on YouTube.
“I looked at their video on YouTube, our ostrich fell off the bone, theirs did not. We didn’t use a single knife to cut it up, it just fell right off the bone and people reached in towards it and ate it with their hands,” Sabone jubilantly boasted. “Our ostrich came out so well that we’re waiting for anyone in South Africa or Africa in general to challenge us now,” he said.
Sabone’s sigh of relief simultaneously marked the success of Jarateng’s ‘Chicks on Fire’, established the extraordinary mark on culinary history the restaurant has made, and set the stage for Jarateng’s next big meat event.
Sabone revealed that for their next major meat event in Gaborone in September, they will be attempting to become the first restaurant in the world to smoke a whole giraffe. This bold ambition was confirmed by the owner of Brahman Butchery, Patrick Moricho.
“We provide all types of meat at our butchery; we have your chicken, beef, and pork but we also have about six types of game meat. We have kudu, zebra, impala, gembok, ostrich, and giraffes readily available in stock,” Moricho said.
“We [Sabone and Moricho] spoke about supplying giraffes for the next big event for Jarateng. I have the space and parking available for such an event if he wants to do it in Phakalane. It’s a very possible event for both of us,” he said.
Prior to Jarateng’s big meat festival in September, the restaurant will be making a special appearance in Gantsi for the Ghanzi Invasion Festival to showcase and offer their unique take on a variety of meats to the festival goers.