Pens en Pootjies Cooked in an Electric Pressure Cooker

This is an easy way to cook offal – pens en pote. I love vaal afval, but my husband likes it in a sweet-and-sour curry.

Louise Silver

I wash the offal when I buy it, allow it to dry and then I make portions which I freeze. This means I can at a whim decide to make offal without having to wait for it to defrost.

I use the sauté function on my electric pressure cooker. Here I build my flavour base. If its vaal afval, its three onions, lots of black and white pepper and salt braised together until nicely golden brown. Once the sauté function is complete, I add the pens and pote.

I use the manual setting and set the timer to 40 minutes (the pot has settings for different dishes, but it also allows you to manually override and set the time for cooking up to an hour).

If I am making vaal afval I add a chicken or vegetable “stock pot”, and if I am making a curry I mix the curry, vinegar, sugar and water and add to the afval. If you like a traditional curry then you would braise your spices with the onions as you would do for a normal curry. I generally do not like any vegetables in my afval, but should you want to, you can release the pressure at the end of 40 minutes, then add the veggies and pressure cook for another 15 minutes.