Hey foodies – there’s a brand-new product in the marketplace that will save you time in the kitchen while turning ordinary, everyday dishes into flavour-packed delicious, healthy meals for the whole family.
Stir! it up is the brainchild of Stellenbosch-based Nini Jerman whose pantry was always stocked with ready-made packaged sauces to add to her family meals, until she became aware of the ingredients that went into these products!
“It read more like a science lab experiment than something I wanted to put into my children’s tummies,” says Jerman.
“I recalled an extract from the book Swallow This: Serving Up The Food Industry’s Darkest Secrets, where author Joanna Blythman writes ‘This was the domain of people whose natural environment is the laboratory and the factory, not the kitchen, the farm or the field; people who share the assumption that everything nature can do, man can do so much better, and more profitably’, and I thought what if I could genuinely help people save time, whilst still making delicious healthy food for themselves and their families ….”
Fast forward a couple of years and, after feeding her long-suffering family and friends 1000 different sauces – tasting and tweaking for months and months – Stir! it up was born, combining the convenience of ready-made, all-natural sauces with home-cooked peace of mind and meals bursting with flavour, aroma and goodness. And not a preservative or chemical ingredient in sight!
Jerman and her team criss-cross the Western Cape to buy their ingredients directly from local farmers. Then it’s back to the kitchen to cut and chop and make their sauces by hand, before they are air-dried – using solar ovens – to remove all moisture and to extend the shelf-life without adding any non-natural ingredients.
To use, liquid is added to the dried sauce, whether it be water, stock, coconut cream or milk, then add browned meat, chicken, fish or vegetables and hey presto, a fabulous dish awaits!
To date Jarman has created 11 different dried sauces – five that fall into what she calls the Global Range (Asian with Rice Wine Vinegar and Sesame Oil, Italian Sun Dried Tomato & Basil, Mediterranean Wild Mushroom, Smokey Curry and Thai Ginger) and six varieties in the African Range (Moroccan Tagine, North African Chermoula, South African Braai, West African Maffé, Tunisian Harissa and West African Yassa).
All Stir! it up sauces are made from the finest ingredients, right here in South Africa. Each flavour is totally natural with no artificial flavours, colourants or preservatives, are completely suitable for vegans and free from gluten, dairy and wheat and are low in salt and sugar.
Concludes Jerman: “Stir! it up’s name is rooted in the physical essence of the product … we do all the hard work; all you need to do is stir. But the name also refers to ‘stirring up’ an industry which is notorious for using chemistry, rather than recipes. At most of these sauce companies, you will never see a stray onion skin or tomato pip lying around. These manufacturers combine ingredients that do not occur in natural food. The scary thing about these cheaper ingredients are, that we don’t know what they might be doing to us.
“At Stir! it up we do not cut corners. Chopping, cooking and air-drying are more expensive than mixing chemicals, but what price can you put on your health?”
You can order Stir! it up online at www.stir-it-up.co.za. Sauces cost between R45 and R50 with a 10% discount on all first purchases.
Imka Webb is a freelance digital marketing expert and the digital editor of Food & Home Entertaining magazine. www.imkawebb.com
