Reader recipe: Lamb bobotie

Tam West

Congratulations, Sherene Newby. Your tasty bobotie is the winner of our oven-bake recipe competition for several reasons. Number one is that it is indeed a true oven-bake — assembled all in one dish and left to cook in the oven without fuss, or excess washing up. Number two, our judges had never had a bobotie and you had us doubting that it would actually work. It sounded delicious but we were thinking that surely you would need to at least fry the onions first and brown the meat for flavour? But no, it all came together perfectly and was full of flavour. We have since researched that boboties can vary greatly from recipe to recipe, but we love your version for its simplicity.

Boboties are a traditional South African curried mince dish done all in one in the oven — so easy and so delicious. I have used lamb to give this version a New Zealand twist that everyone loves. You can use beef mince if you prefer. This is delicious served on turmeric rice or mashed potatoes.

See some of the reader recipes for the oven bake competition here.

Bobotie

1	Onion, finely chopped
1	Apple, grated
500 g	Lamb mince (Main)
2 Tbsp	White wine vinegar
1 tsp	Turmeric powder
2 Tbsp	Curry powder
2 slices	Bread, soaked in about one-third cup of milk, drained and roughly crumbled
50 g	Sultanas, soaked in water and then drained
½ cup	Chutney, I recommend Mrs Ball's peach chutney

Topping

½ cup	Cream, or full cream milk
2	Free-range eggs
¼ tsp	Salt
4	Bay leaves
50 g	Almond flakes

Directions

1. Put all of the above in a bowl and mix well. Place in a casserole dish. Place the casserole dish in a small roasting dish and create a bain marie by filling the roasting dish with boiling water to come half way up the casserole dish.
2. Mix the cream, eggs and salt to create a savoury custard and pour over the mince mixture.
3. Sprinkle almond flakes over the custard and place the bay leaves on top.
4. Bake at 180C for 1 hour. Remove from the oven and let cool a while in the bain marie.