Welcoming Winter with Bobotie
Winter arrived in Cape Town this year with a cold, wet ta-da! One day sunshine, the next flooding.
Naturally, this meant planning winter meals. Many people turn to soups, pastas, stews, anything hot and saucy really. Curries are also a big winner, and in South Africa, that can mean various things: Durban curry, Cape Malay curry, bunny chow, or the ever-reliable butter chicken.
Case in point: I was out for a walk with my fiancé between rain showers when a delicious curry smell drifted from one of the houses. I must confess, though, that curry didn’t come to my mind first. As an Afrikaans girl, there’s only one dish that I crave when curry activates the ol’ olfactory senses: bobotie.
What Is Bobotie?
What Is Bobotie?
Often described as South Africa’s national dish, bobotie is a kind of casserole made with curried meat and topped with an egg custard, then baked in the oven. It’s warm and fragrant, precisely the kind of dish that makes a cold evening feel a lot more manageable.
Every recipe will add its twist, but the building blocks of any good bobotie are onions, mince (beef or lamb), kerrie (curry powder) and borrie (tumeric) (haai, oe, Blommie!), raisins (or sultanas), and apricot jam.
Yes, South Africans cook with fruit, okay? Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.
Fruit in savoury cooking often catches people off guard. I remember watching a MasterChef Australia episode where contestants had to reimagine apricot chicken and acted like it was the most bizarre concept they’d ever encountered. Meanwhile, we’ve been putting jam in our mince for centuries. We were ahead of the curve.
Quick History of Bobotie
Quick History of Bobotie
Bobotie’s roots go back to the 17th century, when Dutch traders settled at the Cape on their routes to and from Indonesia, bringing spices, techniques, and recipes with them. The Cape Malay community made the dish their own, layering in the warmth and spice that defines it today. It’s a dish with a whole history behind it (one worth knowing), but for now, the important thing is that it’s on the menu.
Basic Method to Cook Bobotie
Basic Method to Cook Bobotie
When it comes to classics like bobotie, I turn to my ouma’s cookbooks, specifically Kos en Kookkuns and Kook en Geniet. Below, I’ve recounted the basic steps (I repeat: basic) to cook bobotie with some notes on variations at the end.
- Chop the onions and brown them in a pan with a bit of oil.
- Add your mince, curry powder, turmeric, salt, pepper, raisins, and jam.
- In a separate bowl, soak a slice of bread in milk. Drain the milk and break the bread apart into small pieces, almost like crumbs. Add to your mixture.
- Pour the mixture into an ovenproof dish and add bay leaves.
- Bake in the oven.
- Mix an egg and milk to create the custard. Pour over the mixture and return the dish to the oven.
- Serve with rice and blatjang (chutney).
Tips for Recipe Variation
Tips for Recipe Variation
- Bobotie works wonders for leftover meat, so you don’t have to waste anything.
- If you want to add some acid to the mixture, go for a bit of vinegar or lemon.
- For crunch, add some almonds. Ideally halved or quartered, not whole.
- If you don’t have bay leaves, you can substitute with lemon leaves or lemon zest.
- Use chutney or dried apricots (rehydrated and cut up) if you don’t have (or want to use) jam.
Obviously, as a pescatarian-cum-vegetarian household, I used plant-based mince. No extra effort required, I just literally swapped the minces. Now, it’s also worth pointing out that not all plant-based or soy minces are made equal. My favourite is from the Simple Truth range (available from Checkers). I like it because the texture is very similar to a meat mince – it isn’t runny or grainy like some other soy or pea-protein mince.
Cooking times vary from recipe to recipe. Kook en Geniet recommends an hour and a half if using raw mince and 45 minutes if using leftover meat. Kos en Kookkuns recommends a much shorter 30 minutes (with the lid on the dish) and then baking the egg custard until brown.
This is my latest attempt at bobotie:
Beating Back Winter with Bobotie
Beating Back Winter with Bobotie
I’m still figuring it out. This last one was a bit dry, not as saucy or moist as my mom’s. My mom makes a mean bobotie. It was easily my top-requested dish when I used to visit during breaks while I was at university.
I suspect the trick is more milk, maybe a bit more soaking time for the bread, and being a little less shy with the seasoning. That’s the fun of home cooking. You can just try again (and again and again, if necessary).
In the meantime, it still did what I needed it to do: filled the kitchen with that unmistakable bobotie smell and made a cold, wet Cape Town evening less miserable.
