Smoorsnoek with Croutons

This recipe is for smoorsnoek, an old recipe borrowed by the Afrikaners from the Cape Malay slaves. The tell tale signs of a dish being of Cape Malay origin are the use of chillies and savoury flavours with sweet elements. Snoek is the Dutch name for a fish they have in their fresh waters in the Netherlands but which South Africans have borrowed to name a Southern Hemisphere fish known as snake mackerel or barracouta (not to be confused with the barracuda fish). Apparently, when the Dutch s