BOBOTIE PIES

Next up on the traditional South African menu is Bobotie. Below is my bobotie recipe but this time I used it as the filling for pies and not as a baked dish on its own.

Makes 18 small pies

Ingredients

1kg beef mince

2 onions, finely chopped

1 tbs salt

4 cloves garlic, finely chopped

1 tbs coriander seeds, finely crushed

6 cloves, finely crushed

1 tbs turmeric

2 tbs medium curry powder

6 bay leaves

20 ml lemon juice

100ml apricot jam

1 tbs brown vinegar

A handful of fresh thyme

2 cinnamon sticks

8 slices of white bread, crusts removed

1 glass of milk

3 rolls of puff pastry

100ml fruit chutney (if necessary)

You can add 80ml of raisins if you prefer, not everyone likes them which is why I left them out this time round.

- Brown the onions and garlic in a bit of oil.

- Add the mince to the pan and brown.

- Add the salt, coriander, cloves, curry powder, bay leaves, thyme, lemon juice, sugar and cinnamon and let it simmer for 5 minutes, stirring continuously.

- Add the apricot jam, vinegar and turmeric.

- Pour the milk into a bowl, dunk the bread slices in the milk for a second and add each of them to the pan.

- Keep stirring until the bread dissolves into the rest of the mixture. You should see the colour suddenly change after adding the bread giving it that typical yellowish bobtie colour.

- Turn off the heat and remove the thyme and bay leaves.

If you want to make a traditional bobotie dish – see below.

To make bobotie pies - you need to let the mixture cool down first. I made the bobotie the night before.

- Pre-heat the oven.

- Roll the pastry out on a floured surface or alternatively cover the surface with cling foil.

- The pastry shouldn’t be too thin; I’d say you can roll it out until the surface of the pastry is roughly 30% bigger than the original pastry roll.

- Spray a muffin tray with Spray & Cook.

- Use something with a round shape to cut circles out of the pastry which are big enough to cover the bottom and sides of each “cup” in the muffin tray.

- Use a smaller object to imprint a smaller circle in the middle of the bigger circle; this should be the same size as the bottom of each “cup”.

- Form radio-active pastry shapes as in the photo below.

- Scoop the bobotie filling into each pie, add a dollop of chutney and cover with a pastry lid.

- Beat an egg and brush the top of each pie with it.

- Bake until the outside crust is golden brown; this should take about 30-40 minutes.

To make the traditional bobotie dish - simply pour the mince mixture into an over dish, pour egg-wash over it and bake at 180 degrees until the mixture has set and there are no runny parts anymore. Egg-wash: 1 egg mixed with 100ml of milk.

Bobotie is normally served with yellow rice:

Ingredients

half a cup of raisins

2 cinnamon sticks

2 tsp turmeric

2 tbs brown sugar

1.5 cups basmati rice

1 tsp salt

1.5l water

- Bring the water and salt to the boil, add all the other ingredients.

- Turn down the heat and boil for 14 minutes

- Strain the liquid and remove the cinnamon sticks.