Bobotie, a beloved South African dish, is a culinary symphony of flavors and textures, originating from the Cape Malay community in the 17th century. This traditional dish is a harmonious blend of sweet and savory, with a comforting, hearty minced meat filling encased in a golden and crispy pastry shell. Bobotie is often served with traditional accompaniments like yellow rice, sambals, and chutney, making it a complete and satisfying meal.
This article presents a collection of carefully curated Bobotie recipes, each offering a unique take on this classic dish. From the traditional Cape Malay Bobotie, with its aromatic blend of spices and dried fruits, to the modern fusion Bobotie with a twist of international flavors, this article caters to diverse tastes and preferences. Additionally, it includes a vegetarian Bobotie variation, ensuring that everyone can enjoy this iconic South African dish, regardless of dietary restrictions.
BEST BOBOTIE
This South African original is similar to meatloaf, but so much better. A slightly sweet curry flavors ground beef with a milk and egg custard on top. It's delicious!
Provided by trixie
Categories World Cuisine Recipes African
Time 1h55m
Yield 4
Number Of Ingredients 14
Steps:
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x13-inch baking dish.
- Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Cook the onions in the hot oil until soft. Break the ground beef into the skillet and cook until brown.
- Place the milk in a shallow dish. Soak the bread in the milk. Squeeze the excess milk from the bread. Set the milk aside. Add the bread to the beef mixture. Stir in the raisins, apricot jam, chutney, curry powder, salt, and black pepper. Pour the mixture into the prepared baking dish.
- Bake in the preheated oven 1 hour.
- While the bobotie bakes, whisk together the reserved milk, egg, and a pinch of salt. Pour over top of the dish. Lay the bay leaf onto the top of the milk mixture.
- Return the bobotie to the oven until the top is golden brown, 25 to 30 minutes. Remove bay leaf before serving.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 767.2 calories, Carbohydrate 34.2 g, Cholesterol 196.1 mg, Fat 55.2 g, Fiber 2.4 g, Protein 34.3 g, SaturatedFat 20.7 g, Sodium 831.3 mg, Sugar 20.3 g
CAPE MALAY BOBOTIE RECIPE
Steps:
- In a medium to hot pan cook the onions until soft, then add the mince and brown, mixing well to combine with the onions.
- Soak the bread in milk and mash it in a bowl with a metal fork.
- Put 1 egg, half a cup of milk and the bay leaves aside.
- Place this mixture into a greased oven proof dish and bake at 180°C for 30 minutes.
- Mix all the other ingredients together and then combine with the mince, allowing it to cook until the flavours have combined for about 5 minutes.
- Beat the remaining milk and eggs that you put aside earlier and pour over meat mixture. Float the bay leaves on the top and bake for another 30 minutes.
Nutrition Facts :
BOBOTIE
Pronounced ba-boor-tea, the national dish of South Africa is a delicious mixture of curried meat and fruit with a creamy golden topping, not dissimilar to moussaka
Provided by Sara Buenfeld
Categories Dinner, Main course
Time 1h10m
Number Of Ingredients 14
Steps:
- Heat oven to 180C/fan 160C/gas 4. Pour cold water over the bread and set aside to soak.
- Meanwhile, fry the onions in the butter, stirring regularly for 10 mins until they are soft and starting to colour. Add the garlic and beef and stir well, crushing the mince into fine grains until it changes colour. Stir in the curry paste, herbs, spices, chutney, sultanas and 2 of the bay leaves with 1 tsp salt and plenty of ground black pepper.
- Cover and simmer for 10 mins. Squeeze the water from the bread, then beat into the meat mixture until well blended. Tip into an oval ovenproof dish (23 x 33cm and about 5-6cm deep). Press the mixture down well and smooth the top. You can make this and chill 1 day ahead.
- For the topping, beat the milk and eggs with seasoning, then pour over the meat. Top with the remaining bay leaves and bake for 35-40 mins until the topping is set and starting to turn golden.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 386 calories, Fat 16 grams fat, SaturatedFat 6 grams saturated fat, Carbohydrate 20 grams carbohydrates, Sugar 13 grams sugar, Fiber 1 grams fiber, Protein 43 grams protein, Sodium 0.97 milligram of sodium
BOBOTIE - SOUTH AFRICAN CAPE MALAY CASSEROLE
This is a family recipe from my birth country. It is absolutely unusual and fabulous for potluck dinners as the meat mixture and rice should be served at room temperature to enhance flavours. The accompaniments complete the exotic presentation of the dish. Your guests will be begging for the recipe!
Provided by Emjay99
Categories Meat
Time 2h30m
Yield 6 serving(s)
Number Of Ingredients 31
Steps:
- Soak the bread in the cup of milk, set aside.
- In a large, non-stick skillet, brown the ground beef.
- Add the onions, garlic, curry powder and turmeric and cook until the onions are soft.
- Add sugar, vinegar, raisins, apple, salt and pepper.
- Pour in water and gravy mixture and cook gently until it starts to thicken.
- Remove from heat and cool slightly.
- Gently squeeze excess milk from the bread (add the milk to the custard topping) and tear apart into chunks.
- Fold into meat mixture together with the beaten egg.
- Place the meat mixture into a greased 9 x 9" casserole dish and bake at 350°F for 15 minutes.
- Remove from oven and cool completely.
- Prepare custard topping.
- For the custard topping: beat together the milk, eggs and salt.
- Gently pour over the cooled meat mixture.
- Sprinkle with nutmeg and place bay leaves on top.
- Return casserole to oven until the top is set- about 20 to 25 minutes.
- Serve warm (not hot or better still, room temperature) alongside yellow rice and sambals on the side.
- Cook rice in the usual manner adding turmeric and salt to the water.
- Drain and fluff up, add almonds.
- Place the sambals in small serving dishes and allow guests to help themselves.
Nutrition Facts : Calories 661.5, Fat 21.5, SaturatedFat 7, Cholesterol 219.9, Sodium 455.2, Carbohydrate 77.3, Fiber 4.6, Sugar 15.2, Protein 38.1
BOBOTIE
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.
Provided by Lannice Snyman
Categories Beef Garlic Lamb Onion Bake Casserole/Gratin Lemon Raisin Apple Almond Winter Family Reunion
Yield Makes 8 servings
Number Of Ingredients 20
Steps:
- 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 .
BOBOTIE, FROM THE CAPE
There are as many variations for bobotie as there are cooks. The only secret is to find you own favourite amount and mix of spices! Other than widely believed, bobotie did not come with the slaves from Indonesia, but was actually brought from Holland by founding father Jan van Riebeeck in 1652. Why then the spices, so typical of Indonesian and Sri Lankan cooking? Because through the Dutch East India Company which sailed round the Cape of Good Hope, the Netherlands had a lively spice trade with the East in those days. But we can assume that the original dish was probably much simpler and that the slaves who brought with them their distinctive and popular way of cooking must have improved on the Dutch recipe ... The final result should be soft but firm, spicy and with just a hint of curry: this is not a curry dish. I feel cardamom is a necessary ingredient. Some people add almonds, sometimes I stick crushed lemon leaves in the dish before it goes into the oven. You could also stick in whole almonds. Bay leaves are used in the same way, but bay leaves just don't do it for me! EDITED after reviews: Thank you Happy Bunny and French Tart: I always add raisins or sultanas, and often stud the top with almonds. Don't know why I left it out here!! I've added it to the recipe, but it can also be left out. POSTSCRIPT: I had inadvertently posted two recipes for bobotie over the years; I was unaware of it!! I have chosen this one to stay and the other one went to that great recipe heaven in the sky. The other recipe had chutney in it -- about 2 tablespoons. You can add chutney to this one as well, especially if you cannot get all the spices. (This is what happens when a trad. recipe has many slight variations! !) Maybe I should add here that, making this a few days ago with roasted leftover leg of lamb, I had only 1 lb of meat yet I used the spice amounts as given below, and felt afterwards it could have done with more curry. Also: it tastes even better the next day!!
Provided by Zurie
Categories Curries
Time 1h35m
Yield 4-6 serving(s)
Number Of Ingredients 21
Steps:
- *It might not be easy to find the breyani mix of spices we can get here. But it is only a mix of some or all of the following spices, which you could mix yourself and crush or process coarsely: fennel seeds, coriander seeds, cumin, pimento berries, cardamom, black pepper, star anise, bay leaves and cassia or cinnamon sticks.
- Set oven at 350 deg F/180 deg Celsius For fan/convection ovens the heat can be 10 deg. lower.
- In a small bowl, tear up the slices of bread roughly, and pour over the ½ cup milk. Set aside.
- Peel and chop the onion. Heat about 3 tablespoons oil in a large pot. Fry the onion over medium heat until translucent.
- Add the curry powder, coarsely crushed breyani spices and turmeric. Stir, and let the spices fry for a few minutes. Add more oil if they stick: usually quite a bit of oil is needed.
- Add the chopped, peeled tomato, sugar, grated apple and lemon rind and stir through. Fry for a minute, then add the meat.
- Break up the meat so that the ground meat is loose. Add the salt. Stir often, and mix through with the spice mixture.
- Add the apricot jam, and stir so it melts into the meat mixture.
- When the meat is sort of medium done, remove the pot from the heat. Stir through and let cool a little.
- Take the bread which has been soaking in the milk, and break it up into wet crumbs. The bread will have absorbed all the milk. Add the milky crumbs to the meat mixture, and mix through.
- Break the egg in a bowl, whisk, and add the milk.
- Add this milk-egg mixture to the meat as well.
- Turn into a greased oven dish, and stud with almonds on top. Bake for 40 minutes in the preheated oven.
- Whisk the last egg with the milk and enough turmeric to turn the mixture a nice yellow colour. Take the meat out of the oven, pour over the custard, and bake about 15 minutes longer, or until the egg custard has set.
- Serve with Yellow Rice (Begrafnisrys), a green vegetable such as broccoli, and a salad.
- After tasting the bobotie, feel free to play around with the spices next time!
Nutrition Facts : Calories 634.7, Fat 35, SaturatedFat 13.6, Cholesterol 223.6, Sodium 1450.9, Carbohydrate 39.2, Fiber 4.2, Sugar 18.3, Protein 41.6
Tips:
- Use a good quality beef mince for the best results. You can also use lamb or pork mince if you prefer.
- Add some chopped vegetables to the mince, such as carrots, celery, and onion, for extra flavor and texture.
- Don't overcook the mince. It should be cooked through but still slightly pink in the middle.
- Use a flavorful curry powder for the best results. You can also add other spices, such as cumin, coriander, and turmeric, to taste.
- Make sure the eggs and milk are well-beaten before adding them to the mince mixture. This will help to create a smooth and creamy custard.
- Bake the bobotie until the top is golden brown and the custard is set. This usually takes about 30-40 minutes.
- Serve the bobotie with yellow rice and a side of chutney or sambal.
Conclusion:
Bobotie is a delicious and versatile dish that can be enjoyed by people of all ages. It is a great way to use up leftover beef mince, and it can also be made ahead of time and reheated. With its unique blend of flavors and textures, bobotie is a true South African classic.
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