Christmas at the Safari Table in Zambia and Malawi

Festive lodge recipes from Green Safaris

Christmas at Green Safaris is marked less by the calendar and more by what’s happening in the kitchen.

Puddings are steaming slowly. Mangoes are being sliced by hand. Someone is tasting, adjusting, tasting again. Across our camps in Zambia and Malawi, chefs are preparing for the season in the same way they prepare for everything else. With care, patience, and a deep respect for place.

Food has always been central to how we celebrate. It brings people together after long days on the river or at the lake. It turns stories from the day into shared laughter. And at Christmas, it becomes a way of expressing where we are and who we belong to.

Tongabezi Lodge, Zambia

Traditional Christmas Pudding Recipe

At Tongabezi, Christmas pudding is not rushed.

It begins days before it is served, with dried fruit soaking in dark rum and stout, spices warming gently in the background, and a well-used pudding basin brought out from the shelf. This is a recipe that rewards patience and repetition, much like the river flowing just beyond the kitchen doors.

The pudding itself is deeply traditional. Rich fruit, muscovado sugar, grated butter, and warming spice are steamed slowly for hours until the scent settles into every corner of the lodge. Guests often wander in under the pretext of curiosity, only to linger a little longer than planned.

Served warm with custard or cream, it is familiar, generous, and grounding. A classic Christmas ritual, relocated to the banks of the Zambezi.

Preparation time: 24 hours plus
Cooking time: 5 to 6 hours
Makes: 1 large pudding

Ingredients

Dried mixed fruit, prunes, glacé cherries, dark muscovado sugar, dark rum, stout, walnuts, blanched almonds, ground almonds, fresh breadcrumbs, plain flour, frozen butter (grated), nutmeg, cinnamon, mixed spice, eggs.

Method

Combine dried fruit, prunes, sugar, rum and stout in a bowl. Stir, cover, and soak for 24 hours.

Add nuts, ground almonds, breadcrumbs, flour, grated butter, spices, cherries and eggs. Mix thoroughly, including all soaking liquid. Cover and leave for another 24 hours.

Grease a 1.2-litre pudding basin, line the base with baking paper, and spoon in the mixture. Cover with pleated baking paper and foil.

Place in a saucepan with water reaching one-third up the sides. Simmer gently for 5 to 6 hours, topping up water as needed. Cool completely. Reheat by steaming for two hours before serving.

Kaya Mawa, Likoma Island, Malawi

Baobab, Coconut and Berry Panna Cotta

On Likoma Island, Christmas feels different.

Days are spent in and out of the water. Feet stay bare. Time stretches. By the time dessert is served, guests are usually sun-warmed and salt-kissed, looking for something refreshing rather than rich.

Chef Sanele’s baobab, coconut and berry panna cotta answers that perfectly.

Baobab fruit, harvested from ancient trees that dot the African landscape, brings a gentle citrus tang to the dessert. It is blended with coconut cream, softened with berries, and set just enough to hold its shape. The final flourish is a minted mango sauce, bright and fragrant, spooned generously over the top.

It is light, elegant, and quietly celebratory. A dessert that reflects island life, where indulgence comes from freshness and balance rather than excess.

Served after a long lunch overlooking the lake, it tastes like summer and simplicity. A reminder that Christmas does not need to be heavy to feel special.

Preparation time: 1 hour
Serves: 4 to 6

Ingredients

Dried baobab fruit, coconut cream, castor sugar, mixed berries, gelatine, fresh mango, mango juice, honey, and fresh mint.

Method

Place dried baobab fruit in a bowl, cover with boiling water, and stir until thick. Strain to create baobab juice.

Blend mango, mango juice, honey and mint until smooth. Strain, stir in finely chopped mint, and refrigerate.

Combine baobab juice, coconut cream, sugar and berries in a pot and bring to a gentle simmer. Soak gelatine in cold water, then add to the mixture and stir until dissolved.

Remove from heat, stir for five minutes, pour into lightly greased moulds, and refrigerate until set. Serve with the mango sauce.

Sausage Tree Camp, Lower Zambezi National Park

At Sausage Tree Camp, Christmas dessert comes with a wink.

Chef Andrew’s take on festive pudding leans into bold flavour and local ingredients, blending tradition with a strong sense of place. Sun-dried mango soaked in dark rum. Roasted groundnuts and cashews. Zambezi honey stirred through a rich, spiced batter.

There is warmth here, and a little heat too, if you choose to add the optional chilli. The pudding steams slowly, filling the kitchen with deep, intoxicating aromas that hint at what is to come.

Once served, it is finished with Amarula or rum, toasted coconut, and a generous drizzle of caramel or golden syrup. It is indulgent, playful, and unapologetically festive.

This is the kind of dessert that encourages seconds and stories. The kind that tastes even better the next day. The kind that feels entirely at home beside the river.

Serves: 6 to 8

Ingredients

Dried mango, raisins, dates, dried pawpaw or pineapple, orange zest and juice, dark rum or Amarula, butter, dark brown sugar, eggs, flour, baking powder, mixed spice, cinnamon, optional chilli, roasted groundnuts, roasted cashews, fresh breadcrumbs, Zambezi honey.

Method

Mix dried fruit with orange juice, zest and rum. Cover and soak overnight.

Cream butter and sugar until light. Add eggs one at a time.

Combine dry ingredients and fold into the batter with soaked fruit, nuts, breadcrumbs and honey.

Spoon into a greased pudding basin, cover tightly, and steam gently for 2½ hours. Brush with melted butter and extra rum or Amarula before serving.

Christmas Recipes from Our Safari Lodges

Across our camps, Christmas cooking is never just about the final dish.

It is about the people who grow the mangoes, harvest the baobab, roast the nuts, and share the knowledge that turns ingredients into something meaningful. It is about kitchens that train, mentor, and empower. About celebrating a place while supporting the communities that make these experiences possible.

When you sit down to a Christmas meal with Green Safaris, you are tasting more than a recipe. You are tasting collaboration, care, and continuity. You are participating in a way of travel that values connection over spectacle and generosity over excess.

Christmas, for us, is not a performance. It is a shared moment.

From our kitchens in Zambia and Malawi, we wish you a season filled with good food, unhurried conversations, and memories made around the table.