Even though he is a true-blood South African, my dad was never a braai guy. As far back as I can remember, our family bbq’s were done on what was called a Skottelbraai – a sort of wide, wok-slash-paella pan attached to a gas canister. Recently we were camping when I saw friends with one of these Skottelbraai’s and – they must have thought I’d been electrocuted or something, because I flipped out! I had no idea Cadac had started importing into the UK and the moment I got home I hit Google to find out more. It turns out there is more to Cadac than just the skottelbraai too, whether those have been recent developments or not, I don’t know, but after much uhming and ahing, I bought the Cadac Safari Chef 2 – LP.
There are two Cadac Safari Chef 2’s. One is LP – low pressure- and one is HP – high pressure. The LP version requires a regulator and hose, but can then be attached to a number of different gas bottle options, from the large refillable ones – which works out the best, cost wise – to the smaller single use ones. I tend to keep a small one in the bag, and a backup one in my camping kit, because an extra heavy item to lug around isn’t much fun. One canister normally lasts me about 5 or 6 meals, depending on what you’re making, adding about £1 to the price of the meal. A price I’m happy to pay to not have to find room in the car for a large canister. That said, if I knew we were in one spot for a week or two, I’d probably opt for the large one.
With the HP you only have the option of the screw in canisters which screw directly into the bbq.
I opted for the LP, and to save some money ended up buying a separate hose to go with my existing regulator, but when it arrived I realised my regulator had different markings than those that are supplied with the Safari Chef 2, and the local camping shops couldn’t tell me if it would be okay to use, so I ended up going back to the online shop and just buying the set as is! If you’re not very clued up on these things, I’d suggest the same – I have three regulators now and they all differ in shape and fitting and it’s important to make sure you have the right thing since you’re working with gas and fire.
Why the Safari Chef 2?
The original Safari Chef is still on the market and sells for much the same price as the Safari Chef 2. The difference between the two seems to be very slight, but to me, worth just going for the newer model. For one thing, the Safari Chef 2 has a built in ignition, so no need to remember the matches. It always ways under 4kg, which is a 20% weight reduction on the previous model, and has locking legs for extra stability. The cooking surfaces are non-stick which makes for easier cleaning and the design is slightly different, so that cooking time is reduced. All in all, for much the same price, I think the upgrades are worth going for the newer model.
What does the Safari Chef 2 come with?
The Safari Chef 2 comes with various cooking surfaces. Firstly it has the windshield, which reduces the cooking time in windy conditions. Inside that (although you can also use it without the wind shield) is the regular stand which you can place your kettle or other pots and pans on to cook. Next you can place either the slatted grill which will let all fat run off in to the windshield bit, catching it nicely so you don’t have fat all around your cooking area – my previous bbq made a terrible mess with drippings, and it was a nightmare to clean. With the Safari Chef 2 you just take the base and the BBQ grate and wash those. Super.
You can also use the flat griddle instead of the BBQ grate – this is perfect for things like eggs, pancakes, and fajitas.
The lid can be placed on to conserve the heat, but the lid is itself a cooking surface – turn it around and you have a fantastic deep pan in which you can cook… anything you like! We used it this week for a vegetable medley and I thought adding some chicken to it would have made a super easy one pot meal, which would leave you with just one dish to clean.
In addition to these you can also buy a separate paella pan and a pizza stone! I expect you could fit the pizza stone in the Safari Chef 2 bag as there is a bit of room in it, though I’d have to try the paella pan (don’t own this one yet!) and let you know if that fits too.
Favourite things about the Safari Chef 2?
There are a few things that stand out for me about the Safari Chef 2:
- It’s lightweight and self contained. It fits in behind the passenger seat under my daughters feet without being a burden on space in a tiny car.
- It is super easy to put together and get dinner going. We’ve used it on the beach, a picnic in the park and camping. While not advised, I’d imagine, we also used it in the tent a few times as there were gale force winds outside and cooking – in fact standing up straight – was near impossible. There’s no mess, no flames jumping around and no sparks flying.
- I love that we can eat as we would at home. Healthy meals with practically no huge effort and no extra dishes.
- I LOVE that it’s reduced the number of cooking pots and bits that I have to carry around in the camping kit. We take a bowl for mixing/stirring/combining (thought at a push we could use the lid) and the rest is all done on the Safari Chef 2.
Anything I’d change about the Safari Chef 2?
A way of lifting a hot griddle or grill would be really useful – I use the bbq tongs and just flick it off when I need to switch between plates (i.e. when you’ve friend the onions and now want to grill the patties) but it’s not the end of the world. Where the tongs flick isn’t appropriate, you can just BBQ the patties on the griddle. Not the end of the world. A clip on handle would be useful though. Or I suppose you could buy decent fire gloves.
And just in the interest of transparency, I do also still use my pocket gas stove as no one should ever have to wait for dinner to finish before being able to boil the kettle!
What can you cook on the Safari Chef 2?
So far, excluding regular BBQ food, we’ve done:
- Fruit Skewers with healthy chocolate sauce
- Sausages and sweet corn (for hotdogs)
- Scrambled egg and bacon
- Cheese filled herb tortilla wraps
- Hamburgers (with fried onion)
- Flapjacks/Crumpets/Pancakes (depends on what you call them!)
Buy the Safari Chef 2:
Available from Amazon UK but I ended up buying mine from Winfields Outdoors as they had a sale on. For my Australian friends, I can’t find the Safari Chef 2 there yet, but they do still sell the Safari Chef and other Cadac products