If you want food that hits the spot, feeds the soul, then you come my way […]
– Sherin Antony
‘Not a lot of people understand what Beef Roast is,’ explained Sherin Antony or Sher – as I now know her – after we met. ‘They think it’s a Sunday Roast […] You’ve inspired me […] I’m putting it on the menu!’ Sher’s unfettered energy is infectious, and it wasn’t long before I was not only ordering and collecting dinners from her when in the area but also joining for a run in her suburb with the Spirited Run Club she started. (Showing up consistently is rewarded with her home-cooked dishes – a strong incentive!)
Sher lives at the top of what we call ‘the pink brick road’, in a house we’ve driven past many times. Then in 2023 a large, laminated menu on the outside wall made me do a double take, specifically the words ‘Tastes of Kerala’. Kerala, a state on India’s tropical south-western coast, is a place we’d travelled on the back of a description by South African editor Nic Dawes, who lives and works in New York City but at the time was based in India. Nic had written to us that, ‘dry fried beef (legal in Kerala unlike most states) laced with coconut shards and intense chili is explosively delicious.’
Hoping to have found a source in Cape Town, I pulled into the driveway, noted the cell number and called the next day. On the other end of the line was Sher, who greeted me with her signature enthusiasm. After affirming our mutual love for Keralan cuisine, Sher confirmed it’s her speciality, under the brand Sadya, a business started in her home kitchen and tied to her family heritage. On describing what I called Beef Dry Fry, Sher responded immediately: ‘Beef Ularthiyathu! Or Beef Roast […] My mother makes really amazing Beef Ularthiyathu […]’
Kerala is often referred to as the ‘land of coconuts’, bringing to mind palm-lined coasts, but it was in a lush, misty hill district that we tasted this dish with a distinct two-part process: cubed beef cooked slowly until tender and then cooked again until taking on a deep, roasted colour. It was combined on the second cooking with sliced onions and slivered chillies cooked briskly in coconut oil. We scooped up pieces of meat with porotta that was both rich yet lightly flaky – and witnessed the skill required to make this layered flatbread.
‘Technically if people say Kerala Beef Roast, it’s a dry one, there’s no gravy to it,’ says Sher, who makes hers with some sauce surrounding the meat and beef on the bone. ‘You have to have bone because that’s where the flavour lies, I find if you just use a boneless cut […] it’s not as rich and you want that richness to come through […]’ And that it does, which is what makes it so satisfying. Sher adds: ‘If you want food that hits the spot, feeds the soul, then you come my way, you know?’ Her approach is all in; this is wholehearted, whole-spice, bone-in home cooking.
‘This is obviously something I grew up eating,’ says Sher, who explains she was born in Kerala, raised in Mpumalanga, and then moved to New York with her parents where she studied and worked, before landing in the Cape. ‘But again, my mom makes it with a bit more gravy […] if my dad makes it, he’ll make it a bit drier […] the men like to have it as touchings [bar snacks in Kerala] It’s like you do your dry roast and you have your drink and you eat your meat […]’
The (black) pepper plant is native to Kerala and Sher’s Beef Roast expresses its origins. ‘Typically, the main flavours that stand out are the coriander and the black pepper […] but with me, all the dishes I make, I just taste, and they must just pop,’ says Sher, who hands us two golden teaspoons to taste before and after the salt. (That flavour ‘pop’ is also what makes me return for her Parripu Dhal.) ‘It’s very different because it’s a South Indian flavour and a lot of Capetonian restaurants are North Indian, so you get the Korma and the Butter Chicken […] whereas ours is coastal. In this case the coastal part is the fried coconut.’
To finish Sher’s Beef Roast, slices of coconut are cooked in a pan until the edges look toasted, along with kariveppila or ‘curry leaves’ from the tree in our garden. There’s a thriving Murraya koenigii or ‘curry tree’ in front of our kitchen window that should feel more at home in India than in the shadow of Table Mountain and we periodically drop branches of curry leaves with Sher when driving by. Shortly after we first spoke, Sher shared that her dad was in town, and they were making porottas to accompany the beef. Now her Appa’s Kerala Porottas are carried by the Alphen Farm Stall Kwikspar in Constantia.
Sher has grown Sadya and her following substantially since we met and her street is the place of beginnings, our run, her business. ‘When I moved here, I joined the Dalmore Road WhatsApp group,’ explained Sher, ‘that has a good 50 people on it. I made one pot of South Indian-style chicken and said: Guys, I’ve made a pot, if you’re interested, come over and I'll sell you a single portion but bring your own Tupperware. So, people brought their Tupperware! And that’s how we started. Initially I only carried six dishes and now we have over 20.’
Sadya graduated to having its own WhatsApp group where Sher started posting ‘what’s coming out the pot’. And, in the meantime, Amma’s Beef Roast has become a regular on Sadya’s menu too. If Sher’s Beef Ularthiyathu is inspired by her mom, the porottas, she says, are all her dad. She adds with a broad smile, ‘My dad is the OG, he’s been making them for 25 years, you know, and now the daughter is taking it on!’ Sher does not shy away from emotion, and we’ve had more than one exchange about how precious time with our parents is. Ultimately, Sher’s Beef Roast with Porotta honours both her parents on one plate.
Find Sher this coming Saturday (or the first Saturday of every month) at the market at the Tokai library and on the last Saturday of every month at the Kirstenhof Community Market. To connect with Sher and order from Sadya for collection or delivery, visit sadya.co.za or on Instagram @sadya_cpt