Main Meals,  Recipes

Ba-ba-ba-bobotie!

Do you eat bobotie? Or like it? Because sometimes you eat it to avoid offending some tannie, but actually can’t stand bobotie. For some, it’s the raisins or the general yellowness of the dish (a perfectly good argument, in my opinion). Me? I have issues with bobotie.

It isn’t a dish we ate regularly. My mom doesn’t like it. You know, when the mom doesn’t like something, it doesn’t get made much. And so, bobotie was something we ate at family gatherings, or church stuff, or funerals. Sidenote: why do people serve bobotie at funerals? I can’t help but feel the bulk of my childhood bobotie encounters were at funerals. Anyway. So, I tend to only eat bobotie made by people whose cooking skills I trust immaculately. In effect, very rarely do I eat bobotie.

What the hell is Bobotie?

Simon & Howe, in their Dictionary of Gastronomy (1970), describes bobotee as “A South African ground meat dish, baked in the oven and flavoured with curry powder, sugar, lemon juice, chutney, onions, and shredded almonds.” These two non-South Africans forget to mention the savoury custard-like topping that marks a true bobotie from just another mince curry (right?). Wikipedia has a similar description, but includes a rough etymology and some meat variations. I’m pointing out that I feel cheated. For a dish that’s been around for this long (and enjoyed by so many people in SA), surely there should be more information? I may have to do my part and add some more information to the Wikipedia bobotie page. As it may be, I craved bobotie last night.

What do you mean vegetarian bobotie????!!!!

BUT! Not any bobotie. I wanted vegetarian bobotie (hahaha, I can feel my staunch meat-eating ancestors rolling their eyes in their graves). Full disclosure, I tried this before. It did not go well. It was awful! Awful enough to keep me from trying again for more than 10years! But last night, I was determined, and the craving was real. So I started browsing my mini cookbook library and the interwebs for a recipe.

Generally, when I try something new, I scour my cookbooks first and then take the search to the web. And then, with the power of the knowledge of others, I go forth and screw it up. And then the long work starts to refine the recipe until I can use my friends and neighbours as guineapigs (I would use my family, but they live too far). And then some more tinkering with the recipe….and then I get fed-up and never ever eat/make the dish again. Luckily no, I then feed it to e-ve-ry-one

You may ask, why don’t you just use one of the many recipes you read during your research? And there are a variety of answers to that question.

  1. Because I never have all the ingredients (and I naturally get a bee in my bonnet when the shops are closed).
  2. Because the recipes always have ingredients I don’t like or eat.
  3. Because I always have some prerequisites for the recipe (I am really that annoying).
  4. The recipes always yield too much. It’s only me, dammit, and I can really only eat so much of one dish…
  5. Because…where is the fun in that??

So, the prerequisites for bobotie last night were;

  1. Vegetarian (I’m a committed flexitarian)
  2. Dairy-free
  3. Wheat free
  4. Butternut free (I love butternut, but the obsession vegetarians have with butternut and sweet potato is just beyond me).

None of the recipes I saw could help, so I made my own. Behold, the vegetarian bobotie recipe that will impress every South African vegetarian/flexitarian. It is spicy (slightly more than I anticipated), sweet-ish (without the dried fruit that most people despise), and the yoghurt-based topping has a very slight tang that balances this whole lot. And if you don’t eat the bobotie with the traditional yellow rice, it only yields enough for two meals!

Vegetarian Bobotie

A vegetarian twist on the South African classic bobotie.
Prep Time 15 minutes
Cook Time 50 minutes
Course Main Course
Cuisine South African
Servings 2 servings

Ingredients
  

  • 1 cup uncooked lentils I used a ½ cup of brown lentils and a ½ cup red lentils
  • 1 tbsp butter
  • 1 tbsp olive oil
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 1 tbsp medium curry powder
  • 1 red chilli (optional) chillies are difficult to gauge, I used one whole chilli, pips removed. Feel free to use as much or as little as you want
  • 2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
  • 1 tbsp ginger, peeled and chopped You can use fresh ginger, but I still had ginger left from the last time I made ginger ale and chopped that up.
  • 2 med carrots, peeled and grated
  • 1 large baby marrow, washed and grated
  • 1 med ripe tomato
  • 3 tbsp chutney
  • 10 ml coconut blossom sugar or any other sweetener
  • ½ cup chopped fresh coriander
  • salt and pepper to taste

Savoury custard topping

  • ¼ cup full-cream plain yoghurt
  • ¼ cup unsweetened soy milk or milk, or any other milk alternative
  • 2 x-large eggs
  • 2 bay leaves

Instructions
 

  • Start off by adding about two cups of water to the lentils and bring them to a boil. Boil until soft, but not mushy. Do not add salt at this stage. Salt prevents your lentils from cooking soft.
  • When the lentils are done, rinse them in a colander and set aside.
  • In a large pot, heat the butter and oil and gently fry the onion, curry powder, chilli, garlic, and ginger on medium heat.
  • Add the carrots and baby marrow and saute for 10-15min until the veg is very soft and any liquid has evaporated. It helps keeping the heat on medium to prevent burning.
  • Add the chopped tomato and fry again for 5min.
  • Then add the remaining ingredients (chutney, sugar, coriander, and cooked lentils) and once again fry until the mixture has very little moisture.
  • Season to taste
  • In a separate bowl, mix all the ingredients (except the bay leaves) for the topping.
  • Set the oven to 180° Celcius.
  • Move the lentil mixture from the pot to an oven-proof dish. Make sure to smooth the top of the mixture.
  • Gently pour the custard topping on top of the lentil mix.
  • Place the bay leaves on top of the mixture (you can make a lovely little arrangement if you want).
  • Place in the oven and bake until the custard is set and lightly browned (around 35-40min).

Notes

  • I used the leftover ginger from the last time I made ginger ale
  • I made the mistake to add the bay leaves to my egg-mixture. Don’t do that, the mixture had a slightly bitter taste around the leaves, rather place it on top of the mix.
  • Serve with a basic green salad and/or traditional yellow rice.
Keyword Bobotie, South African, Vegetarian

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