Wednesday, 20 may '09: Bobotie and yellow rice

I am just about to take a lunch break and cook bobotie (pronounced boo-boo-tee) which will do for my supper and freeze well for the rest of the week. Bobotie is lekker! And about as South African as you can get. It is a Malay (Indonesian) dish which was introduced in, I suppose, the 17th century during the administration of the Cape of Good Hope by the East India Company. My definition is a sort of baked curried mince with a egg custard topping.

Here is my favourite recipe, although I hardly glance at exact quantities:

2 slices of day old bread (white or brown)
375 ml milk
25 ml cooking oil
10 ml butter
2 chopped onions
2 cloves of garlic
100 ml sultanas or raisins
25 ml curry powder
25 ml cumin seeds
10 ml salt
25 ml chutney (Mrs Ball's chutney is best)
15 ml apricot jam
5 ml borrie (tumeric)
25 ml vinegar
15 ml Worcester sauce
1 kg minced beef or lamb
3 eggs
Bay leaves

Method:

1 Soak bread in milk.
2 Heat oil and butter. Brown onion and garlic. Add cumin seeds (don't burn), curry powder, salt, chutney, jam, Worcester sauce, borrie and vingar. Stir fry spices gently.
3 Add mince and brown.
4 Pour milk off bread. Set milk aside.
5 Add bread to meat mixture. Add sultanas. Mix and stir till just cooked.
6 Add beaten egg. Mix well.
7 Place mixture into greased baking dish.
8 Beat other 2 eggs with milk (add some more milk if necessary). Pour over meat. Place bay leaves on top.
9 Bake for 45 to 60 minutes at 180 C degrees.

Serve with yellow rice, coconut, chopped bananas and chopped tomatoes and onions.

PS Cath always throws in a handful of chopped nuts - macadamians, almonds, whatver you have. I find leftover bobotie is great wrapped in the rotis I buy freshly made at Little Durban on Bronkhorst Street, Brooklyn (ie Pretoria not New York).