Bobotie

By Natalie Farrell

Bobotie is best described as a curried sweet meatloaf, made from typical Malay spices and topped with a savoury custard. First made in Holland in 1609 then taken to South Africa and adopted by the Malay community.

Bobotie Ingredients

1 kg Mince

2 medium onions

1-2 tsp crushed of garlic

2 tbs curry powder

2 tsp salt

1 tsp turmeric

2 tbs chutney

1 tbs apricot jam

2 tbs brown vinegar

6 tbs raisins

Handful of dried apricots, chopped (optional)

2 slices white bread, crusts removed

3 large eggs

1 ½ cups of milk

Little oil for frying

4 Bay leaves

A few pinches of flaked almonds

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 160 degrees
2. Soak the bread in the milk
3. Heat the oil in a frying pan
4. Add the onions and garlic
5. Fry until soft
6. Add the curry powder, salt, turmeric, chutney, apricot jam and vinegar
7. Mix it well
8. Gently squeeze the milk from the bread (keeping the milk)
9. Mash up the bread and add it to the onion pan with the mince and raisins (and apricots if you’re using them)
10. You don’t want to fry the mince until it’s browned, you just want it to lose the pinkness
11. Remove from the heat and add one of the beaten eggs (make sure your mince isn’t too hot or else you’ll scramble the egg)
12. Mix it in well
13. Spoon into an oven proof dish (28cm x 16cm), pressing it down quite firmly
14. Beat the other two eggs and mix with the left-over milk
15. Add a pinch of turmeric and pour over the meat
16. Place a few bay leaves on the top and sprinkle with some flaked almonds
17. Place it in a preheated oven and bake for about an hour or until set
18. Serve it with yellow rice, sambal, coconut, chutney and sliced banana

Yellow Rice

1. Follow the cooking instructions on your bag of long grain rice
2. Add the following to the water:

1\2 cinnamon stick

Handful raisins

½ tsp turmeric

Sambals to go with your bobotie

I think the boat is still out on the perfect sambals to go with Bobotie, but I love this one make it all the time.

4 chopped tomatoes

2 chopped small onions

Salt and pepper

A splash of brown vinegar

A teaspoon of sugar

All mixed together

I prefer to make it a few hours before so that the flavours can mature

Why not have a glass of Pinotage with your bobotie? Here Gerhard Perold speaks about his Pinotage heritage.

Natalie homeschools her three children. You can hear all about it in this podcast: