Enjoy The Humble Penny Polony in These 7 Delicious Ways

If you’ve ever stood around a fire with your cousins and stuck wooden skewers through pink worsies that popped when they were ready, you know that was the good life.

Penny polony is not really a polony but more of a sausage. Actually, a pink string of sausages that came with garlic and coriander flavour and was once sold for a single penny, hence the name. Some call it oulap worsies, warme worsies or Honne worsies.

The polony is a mix of meat bits ground up together, blended with other ingredients for taste and that iconic pink look. It’s been part of Cape Town takeaways and butcheries for decades, eaten straight from the fridge or cooked into a warm meal.

The name behind it goes all the way back to Rahmaan Adams and his father, Mohammad Abbas Adams. These two built something that fed a generation and shaped the family name across Cape Town. After being forced to move under the Group Areas Act, the family opened Adams Moslem Meat Market in Manenberg. That butchery has been serving the community for over 50 years, and Abassies warme worsies are still made with the same care and flavour.

Here are seven ways penny polony can be eaten.

Penny Polony Smoortjie

Commonly enjoyed in Cape Town, a “smoortjie” is a braised dish, typically prepared with a meat of choice alongside onions and tomatoes.

This Cape Malay “warme worsies” recipe by Fatima Sydow offers a flavourful, easy-to-make dish. It begins by sautéing onions until golden, then simmering them with hot water. Next, garlic, salt, pepper, whole chilies, tomato paste, and sugar are added, cooking until the water evaporates and a rich, concentrated sauce forms. Finally, the “warme worsies” (warmed sausages) are introduced with more hot water and gently cooked for 5-8 minutes. 

You can try another smoortjie recipe over at Halaal Recipes.

Penny Polony Parcel 

This is the budget cousin of a fish and chips parcel. A few slices of penny polony are deep-fried and served over a heap of slap chips (soft, vinegar-soaked fries). The whole thing is drenched in a sauce of your choice—tomato, chili, or atchar—and wrapped in paper. It’s messy, greasy, and delicious. This combo is sold at takeaways across the Cape Flats.

Penny Polony Gatsby

Gatsby culture runs deep in Cape Town, and while steak and chicken get the limelight, the penny polony gatsby holds its own in this oversize sandwich world. A penny polony gatsby is built inside a long roll, usually a footlong or more, stuffed with slap chips, sauce, lettuce, and slices of fried penny polony. It’s the gatsby you buy when payday is still far away, but you’re craving that familiar bite. While it doesn’t beat a steak gatsby in status, the penny polony version still slaps lekker for giembas.

Penny Polony Pizza

Who needs pepperoni when you’ve got penny polony? This is the local remix on a classic favourite. Grab a basic pizza base, layer it with tomato sauce, sprinkle some cheese, then top it with thin slices of penny polony. Bake until the cheese bubbles and the edges crisp up.

Penny Polony Sandwich

Sometimes the best meals are the simplest. Spread a thick slice of butter on white bread, add a few slices of fried or cold penny polony, and top it off with atchar. The tanginess of the atchar cuts through the saltiness of the polony, and the butter keeps everything soft and satisfying. it’s been fuelling workers, students, and late-night snackers for decades.

Egg and Penny Polony Breakfast 

You don’t need bacon to make a solid breakfast. Fry up slices of penny polony alongside your eggs and tomatoes. A slice or two of bread completes the plate, making a quick and greasy breakfast that goes down lekker after a night out.

Inside Noodle Salad

Penny polony adds colour to cold noodle salads. Cut the sausage into cubes and mix with cooked noodles, chopped peppers, corn, tomatoes, onion, and mayonnaise. Serve alongside Sunday lunch or a Saturday braai.

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