I have thoroughly enjoyed baking up some ‘Bobotie” since Karen turned me on to it!
One might describe the dish as a ‘casserole’… but that says more about the container than what goes inside it. My adventure to discover the history of Bobotie, where it came from, who helped shape and develop this interesting dish was quite a journey of exploration. I also had the opportunity to investigate what is ‘curry’ and discover how that helped ‘simplify’ the recipe but how it also changed it.
It is clear that the Dutch brought this initially popular ‘Italian’ recipe to Southern African in the 17 th century… or at least that’s the story. From here, it is clear that the British and the Cape Malay’s had a distinct influence on it’s evolution. Today, there are a wide variation in Bobotie recipes… but they are more similar than different. The recipe substituting Yogurt for the 1 cup milk was one of the more interesting to me.
If you search Bobotie, you will find ‘modern’ recipes from all over the world, emphasizing their own personal seasoning preferences. However, most of the recipes I found were British, German, South African and –of course– Dutch sites.
So, I robbed from everyone without regard to expense… and here’s my recipe… sweet and yummy.
Fortunately, it’s very good on my ‘healthy food’ meter and great when you have folks hanging around to test things out!
Roger Freberg
