On the heat. Medium

Ingredients

• 12 lamb rib chops, 2 cm thick
• Coarse salt, black pepper
• — MONKEYGLAND BASTE
• 1 onion, grated
• 200 ml tomato sauce
• 4 tbsp chutney
• 3 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
• 2 tbsp brown vinegar
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 1 tsp mustard powder · 1 tsp chilli flakes

Method

1. Salt the chops and leave them out for 40 minutes. Cold chops on coals cook unevenly and you lose the middle.
2. Simmer all the baste ingredients for 12 minutes until glossy and thick. Cool.
3. Hot coals, but not fierce. Chops on the grid, fat edge down first for two minutes to render — this is what stops the flare-ups later.
4. Lay them flat, 4 minutes, turn, 3 minutes. Only now start basting, both sides, for the last 3 minutes. Baste early and the sugar burns black.
5. Rest on a warm board for 5 minutes. Serve the extra baste warm alongside.

Cook's note. The name. There is no monkey in it and never was — it is a Johannesburg hotel sauce from the 1940s that became the national braai baste.

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