Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Lannice Snyman's book Rainbow Cuisine: A Culinary Journey Through South Africa. Snyman also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. For your convenience, we've converted the measures � with as much accuracy as possible � from South African to American. For those who have metric equipment and wish to follow Snyman's recipe to the milliliter, we've included the original measures too. To read more about Snyman and South African cooking, click here.
This would be a hot contender for South Africa's national dish! The recipe was selected for an international recipe book published in 1951 by the United Nations Organisation. Bobotie is a Cape-Malay creation, and they spice it up even more with cumin, coriander and cloves. A similar dish was known in Europe in the middle ages after the Crusaders had brought turmeric from the East.
When our first Dutch settlers arrived, Holland was largely influenced by Italian cooks, and a favorite dish was a hashed meat backed with curried sauce, spiked with red pepper and 'sweetened with blanched almonds.' There are many local variations, but the idea is that the mince should be tender and creamy in texture, which means long, slow cooking. Early cooks added a little tamarind water; lemon rind and juice is a more modern adaptation.
1 kg (2 pounds) minced lamb or beef, or a mixture of the two butter, vegetable oil
2 onions, chopped
2 ml (1/2 teaspoon) crushed garlic
15 ml (1 tablespoon) curry powder
5 ml (1 teaspoon) ground turmeric
2 slices bread, crumbled
60 ml (1/4 cup) milk
finely grated rind and juice of 1/2 small lemon
1 egg
5 ml (1 teaspoon) salt, milled black pepper
100 g (3 ounces) dried apricots, chopped
1 Granny Smith apple peeled, cored and chopped
60 ml (1/4 cup) sultanas (golden raisins)
50 g (1 1/2 ounces) slivered almonds, roasted in a dry frying pan
6 lemon, orange, or bay leaves
TOPPING
250 ml (1 cup) milk
2 eggs
2 ml (1/2 teaspoon) salt
Set the oven at 160�C (325�F). Butter a large casserole. Heat butter and oil in a saucepan and fry the onion and garlic until translucent. Stir in the curry powder and turmeric, and cook briefly until fragrant. Remove the pot from the heat.
Mix in the minced meat. Mix together the crumbs, milk, lemon rind and juice, egg, salt, pepper, apricots, apple, sultanas (golden raisins) and almonds and mix in. Pile into the casserole and level the top. Roll up the leaves and bury them at regular intervals. Seal with foil and bake for 1 1/4 hours. Increase the oven temperature to 200�C (400�F). Mix together the topping milk, eggs and salt (you may require extra topping if you've used a very large casserole), pour over and bake uncovered for a further 15 minutes until cooked and lightly browned. Serve with Yellow Rice and Blatjang.
Lannice Snyman shares her tips with Epicurious:
� As it cooks, the mince shrinks away from the sides of the dish � to prevent the custard topping from settling underneath the mince, flatten the mince well with a potato masher after it's cooked (before adding the custard topping).
� To make bobotie ahead of time, prepare and bake the mince, then cool, cover, and chill it for up to three days. Add the custard topping and bake as instructed, adding about 10 minutes to the baking time to compensate for the chilliness.
� Wine suggestion: The South Africans love their Pinotage, and here's your chance to find out why. The esteemed Kanonkop Estate does Pinotage (2001, $28) better than anybody: smoky, meaty, chocolatey, with a note of cassis up top.
Makes 8 servings.
Reprinted with permission from Rainbow Cuisine: A Culinary Journey Through South Africa