Bobotie

Ingredients

2 slices white bread
2 onions, chopped
25 g butter
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 kg lean minced beef (or could use about 2 1/4 cups dried lentils, cooked ahead of time, and drained)
2 tablespoons Madras curry paste (could use powder, too)
1 teaspoon dried mixed herbs
3 cloves (or 3/4 teaspoon of ground cloves)
5 allspice berries
2 tablespoons peach or mango chutney
3 tablespoons sultanas
6 bay leaves

Ingredients for the topping

300 ml milk
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon turmeric

Directions

Lay the bread in a flat container and pour just enough milk over the slices for them to soak up. Set aside for now.
In a large pan, heat the butter on medium heat and fry the onions until softened and starting to turn golden, about 10 minutes or so. Add in the garlic and beef, mix well, and cook until the meat until no pink remains.
Add in the curry paste, herbs, spices, chutney, sultanas, and 2 of the bay leaves. Season to taste. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Meanwhile, squeeze the milk out of the bread.
Remove the beef mixture from the stove, and add in the squished bread, mixing well. Place the filling into an overproof dish, pressing the mixture down well, and smoothing out the top.

At this point, you can cover and refrigerate the dish, if you want to finish cooking it the next day, or you can freeze it if you want to thaw it and add the topping before baking another time. But you can also carry on making the recipe to the end because it’ll also freeze just fine with the finished topping.

To make the topping: Combine the eggs, milk, and turmeric and whisk well. Pour over the meat mixture and bake in an oven preheated to 350F/180C for 35 – 40 minutes or until the topping has set and is just starting to turn golden. Remove from oven, let rest for 10 minutes or so, then portion out and serve.

My Notes

I didn’t have beef in the house but I’d read that 1 cup of brown lentils can be used in place of every 1 pound of beef mince. So I was going to cook up 2 1/4 cups of lentils ahead of time and drain them to use instead of the meat, but I only had 1 1/4 cup lentils in the house, so that’s all I used. It was still enough to fill 2 of my rectangular loaf tins. I also used 3 eggs instead of 2 because they were small. Once baked, I let them cool, and wrapped them well for the freezer. We’ll thaw them in the fridge the night before and reheat them, covered in foil, at 350F/180C for 25 minutes or so or until warmed through.

The topping is a bit squished because I had to place the 2 silicone loaf tins into metal tins halfway through baking because I was worried they’d bend and the topping would spill out — probably because I had less of the meat/lentil filling than originally intended. (The silicone tins usually hold their shape better when mostly filled.)