Mom's tasty meals ignite chef's career

There is nothing like a mother’s love as the secret ingredient to ignite an amazing culinary career.

Reneilwe Thema knows that too well, crediting her mother’s scrumptious meals in her childhood as inspiration for her becoming a professional chef.

“Hands down, my mother is the best cook. I started cooking when I was in grade 4 and it was my mother’s tasty food that brought my interest in cooking,” says the 26-year-old commis chef at the Marimba restaurant at Meropa Casino & Entertainment World in Polokwane.

From a young age, Thema aspired to follow in her mother’s footsteps in the kitchen. Thema lived with her family in Seshego, outside Polokwane.

“My mother relocated to Lebowakgomo [for work], an hour away from our home. As the eldest and only girl, I had to take care of my siblings with my grandmother and my grandmother’s cooking was on a basic level,” she says.

“She was only able to cook on the basic levels, unlike my mother’s cooking. We were used to her cooking and we missed it when she left. Her tasty food is what brought my interest in cooking and inspired me to be the cook I am today.”

Thema recalls her mother’s delicious pasta salads as the go-to side dish for every Sunday kos.

“Similar to most black families, every Sunday it's tradition to always bring out 'several colours'. We have this family tradition on Sundays of pasta salads. I'm a fan of pasta salads, even though I specialise in banqueting. The technique of only mixing your peppers, bacon and viennas with your pasta to make a salad was always such a treat and got me interested in combining vegetables in a tasty way,” she says.

“I had been cooking since primary school into high school and received the opportunity to pursue it further after my matric at the Limpopo Chefs Academy. I qualified in professional cookery,” she says.

Thema expresses immense gratitude to Meropa, who pushed her out of her fine-dining comfort zone and to experience the real daily workings of a chef. 

“Meropa challenged me to be open-minded and interested in banqueting. That's when I developed an interest in running my space as an evening chef. Most of my part-time hours, I am a private chef for most of the events,” she says.

Thema recounts her nerves at a recent hotel event where she served Yvonne Chaka Chaka her dessert inspired by TikTok.

“We had to prepare everything in a short space of time. She is a legend, you're trying to impress and you're working with minimum ingredients,” she says.

“For the dessert, I dipped fresh fruit kebabs into melted sugar – so you have this crunchy part from the outside, then inside you just have this fresh fruit. At first, we wanted to make the food cup, but I said to myself, 'No, man, if the fruit is exposed in the air for too long, it will start to discolour and spoil'. I then melted sugar in water to form a syrup and it crystallised beautifully, glazed on the outside. It became the star of the show because it was different and away from your malva and custard puddings.

Thema shares her steak pasta salad, inspired by her mother.

Steak salad with peppadews, feta, olives and sweetcorn

Ingredients

• 1 fillet of steak
• 50g of peppadews, strained
• 50g of feta cheese, diced
• 100g sweetcorn, blanched and strained if from frozen
• 50g butter, unsalted
• 200g crispy lettuce leaves, washed and drained
• 20g olives, pip-less and drained
• 20g green bell peppers, chopped
• 10g red onion, disks
• ½ baby cucumber, disks
• 20g cherry tomatoes
• sprigs of thyme
• salt and pepper to the seasoning
• creamy salad dressing of your choice

Method

• To prepare the steak, on a hot grill, sear or brown the piece of meat all around and remove from the pan. In the same pan, add a knob of butter and a sprig of thyme. Add the steak back into the pan and continue cooking for 5-8 minutes, turning over every time. Set aside to rest for 5 minutes. The steak should be medium rare when complete.
• To assemble to salad with a layer at the bottom of the dish with a bed of lettuce. Followed by the green bell peppers, red onions, tomatoes, and cucumbers, gently toss.
• Add the sweetcorn, peppadews, and olives, and gently toss the salad.
• Lastly, add your feta cheese and toss it through the salad. Set aside.
• While the steak is still warm, slice it into thin strips of meat and assemble on top of the salad. Gently mix it all.
• Season with salt and pepper and add your favourite dressing when ready to serve.

*To make it a filling lunchtime meal, add a cup of your favourite pasta and mix thoroughly but gently. Serve warm.