Charles Dunn’s culinary journey is the perfect example that a dream delayed is not a dream denied.
The 37-year-old private chef from Katlehong, on the East Rand, made the life-changing decision in 2025 to start over and pursue his long-buried dream.
“In 2025, I decided to do a professional patisserie programme and trained at the Avianto Hotel and afterwards kicked off my private cheffing,” he says.
“Between 2011 and 2015, I lived in eMalahleni in Mpumalanga and worked as an electrical artisan and then worked for Virgin Mobile in telecommunications in Pretoria. My last job was as a sales representative for Auto and General in Northern Johannesburg in 2019 before I moved to Klerksdorp in 2020.”
In Klerksdorp, he and a friend, Tebogo Mano, ran a small street food business on a busy traffic intersection but dissolved it two years later. It was during this difficult season that he rekindled his childhood passion for food through a plate of samp that reminded him of home.
“I fell in love with food around 2016, but the choice to pursue it as a career came in 2020. I told myself that everything I do moving forward had to be centred around food,” he says.
“The samp reminded me of how my aunt used to make it, and it had me thinking about family gatherings and my late father’s late-night kitchen fry-ups when he arrived [home] late from work. In 2023, I moved back to Johannesburg and registered for a professional cookery course and worked as a kitchen trainee at Protea Hotel.”
In 2025, Dunn received his first industry nod when he landed the opportunity to work on the Roots & Recipes cookbook. The book, which features renowned SA chefs, is a celebration of local indigenous foods.
“With Roots & Recipes, I assisted in the preparation of the dishes, and Cooking with Malaysian Oil book for the SA Chefs Association published my recipe. Since that break, more invites came in for work," he says.
Dunn shares his harvest-table-inspired meal guaranteed to keep the family coming back for seconds.
Roasted chicken with sorghum salad with a medley of vegetables, sautéed carrots and beans, gooseberry sauce, creamy spinach and mash
Ingredients
- 1 kg whole chicken
- 500g spinach (roughly cut)
- 100g medium red onion (finely chopped)
- 100g medium white onion (thin slices)
- 250g butternut (small cubes)
- 250g sweet potato (small cubes)
- 100g mushrooms (finely sliced)
- 200g carrots (sliced into sticks)
- 200g green beans
- 2 tbsp mango mustard or mango puree
- 5 medium potatoes (peeled, cubed)
- 50g red and green sweet peppers (thinly sliced)
- 200g sorghum grain
- 50g gooseberries
- olive oil (as needed)
- 150g butter
- 25g flour
- 250ml warm milk
- 5g paprika
- 15g chicken spice
- 5g rosemary
- 5g thyme
- 15g vegetable spice
- 5g cinnamon
- 5g cabbage spice
- 5g sugar
- 10g Cremora or milk powder
- salt and pepper for taste
Method
- To make the white sauce for the spinach, begin by melting butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Add the flour and stir continuously for 2–3 minutes to cook out the raw flour taste. Do not brown.
- Gradually add the warm milk in stages, allowing the sauce to thicken before adding more. Whisk continuously to prevent lumps.
- Bring to a gentle simmer while stirring. Let it cook for 5–10 minutes until smooth and thickened. Set aside.
- In a saucepan, add a tablespoon of olive oil and 50g of white onion and sliced mushrooms. Sauté until onions are slightly translucent and add the spinach, sprinkle some of the cabbage spice, cover and cook on low heat for 10-15 minutes. Gently pour in the white sauce to slightly thicken the spinach and set aside. Set aside ¼ of the white sauce.
- To prepare the chicken, score the chicken for maximum flavour and rub it with the mango mustard. Season with chicken spice, thyme, rosemary and paprika and rub into chicken.
- Place the chicken into an ovenproof dish and cover with foil. Roast for 40 min at 160 degrees Celsius. Set aside the remainder of the chicken stock
- Unwrap the foil and set it back in the oven until brown, occasionally glazing with the liquid in the dish. Set liquid aside for use later.
- To prepare the sorghum salad, add sorghum to a medium-sized pot with a pinch of salt. Pour 750ml of water and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce the heat and let it simmer for about an hour. The grains should be tender but slightly chewy once done.
- Season the butternut, sweet potato, sweet peppers and red onion with vegetable seasoning, cinnamon, paprika and sugar.
- In a small bowl, pour 10g olive oil and toss it together before adding it to the baking tray to bake openly for about 30 minutes at 160 degrees Celsius or until vegetables are soft to the touch but still firm. Set aside.
- Add the cooled roasted vegetables to the sorghum and mix.
- To prepare the carrots and green beans, blanch the carrots and the greens by placing them in a bowl and pouring boiling water over them. After 8-10 minutes, place into ice water until tender but still with a crunch. Let the carrots blanch slightly longer.
- Add butter to a small saucepan and sauté, adding a pinch of the vegetable seasoning or just salt and pepper.
- To prepare the mash, bring to a boil in a small pot until soft. Drain out the water but leave a small amount to mash well.
- Add butter and Cremora and mix well. Set aside until ready to serve.
- To prepare the gooseberry sauce, strain the chicken stock and pour it into a small saucepan with the gooseberries and let it simmer for about 15 to 20 minutes. Strain the liquid back into the saucepan and stir in the white sauce until a smooth consistency.
