Bobotie - Our first home-cooked meal post !

We not only love to go out to dinner and discover new restaurants and places, but also enjoy cooking at home very much. Coming home after a long day at work, this is always a nice way for us to relax and unwind. Over the last years, we have cooked many recipes from all over the world (by now we have a large, and ever growing, collection of cooking books and magazines), and it is nice to now start sharing our cooking experiences at home on this blog. We are very open to all different kinds of food and love to experiment and educate our palates, and our first post on our home cooking will be on a famous South African dish: Bobotie

Bobotie has a long history in South African cuisine and is one of the national dishes. It is known in the area of South Africa since the 17th century and most likely has its roots in Indonesia and comes from the word Bobotok. Other sources place the origin in Malaysia. But it seems to be clear that Dutch settlers/companies brought this dish to the Cape of Good Hope.

In old times the meat was often a mixture of mutton and pork, but today lamb or beef is mainly used. The dish is characterized by its balance of savory and sweet flavors which comes from dried fruits such as raisins or apricots. The addition of curry and chili powder, lime juice and almonds give this seemingly simple dish a surprising complexity. The dish is normally served with saffron rice and a fruity chutney. We served it also with some green beans and a nice cold beer.

Preheat oven to 160 C/320 F. Heat butter and oil over medium heat. Add onions and garlic and cook for 6-7 minutes until translucent. Add curry powder, turmeric, chili powder and salt. Remove from heat and let it cool for a few minutes.

Mix ground lamb, cooled onion mixture, lime zest and juice, apricots, apple, Panko crumbs, milk, egg and almonds.

Spoon mixture to a greased casserole and level the top. Cover casserole with aluminum foil and bake for one hour.

Remove from oven and preheat oven to 210 C/410 F. Beat eggs with remaining milk and pour over lamb mixture and bake uncovered until cooked and browned for 20-25 minutes.

Recipe adapted from “Afrikanische Kueche” by Honos Verlag

2 onions, finely diced

3 garlic cloves, minced

20 g (1 tbsp) butter

2 tbsp canola oil

1 tbsp curry powder

¼ tsp turmeric

½ tsp chili powder

1 kg (2.25 lb ground lamb)

finely grated zest and juice of one lime

100 g (4 oz) dried apricots, finely diced

1 apple, cored and finely diced

3 tbsp Panko crumbs

75 ml (3 fl oz) milk

1 egg

50 g (2 oz.) sliced almonds

250 ml (10 fl oz) milk

2 eggs