I love going to Walt Disney World. My younger years were spent playing in the parks and then during my early 20′s I worked for the Mouse. To this day, I still can’t get enough of it. I have slept in the hotels and eaten in the restaurants too. It was my first visit to Boma’s at the Animal Kingdom Lodge that I tasted a savory and sweet dish called bobotie. That was in 2001 and I have been wanting to recreate the dish ever since. I have been back to Boma’s multiple times since that introduction and haven’t attempted the dish until now.
My search for a bobotie recipe has spread far and wide on the internet. You can find bobotie recipes just about everywhere. I even found two African cookbooks in the library that had bobotie recipes. The interesting thing is that no two bobotie recipes were alike. None! I read more into the dish and discovered it is traditional comfort food and everyone has their own way of doing. One way is not “right” and the other “wrong.” It is all bobotie.
So of course I had to make my own bobotie recipe. I took what I liked and what ingredients were available and ended up with a pretty tasty version, not too far off the one I originally had at Boma’s. I served it with a side of brown rice and a simple green salad. The Husband though it was delicious and taste-tester Erin said it was meat and dessert in one dish. Trust me, it’s a complement. Now it’s your turn. Why not make some African comfort food of your own?
Bobotie
The Ingredients
The Meat Mixture
- 2 lbs Ground Beef
- 1 Tbs butter
- 1 Tbs vegetable oil
- 1 large onion, chopped
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 Tbs curry powder
- 1 tsp paprika
- 2 tsp ground turmeric
- 1 tsp salt
- 1/8 tsp pepper
- 2 Tbs brown sugar
- 1 Tbs sugar
- 2 Tbs red wine vinegar
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 2 sweet apples peeled, cored and chopped (same size as raisins)
- 1/4 cup apricot preserves
- 1/4 cup sultanas (golden raisins)
- 2 slices bread, crumbled
- 2 ounces slivered almonds, roasted in a dry frying pan
- 4 – 5 bay leaves
The Topping
- 1 cup milk
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 tsp salt
The Steps
- Preheat the oven to 350 degree and butter a 13 x 9 casserole dish.
- Melt oil and butter in a large skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and garlic and saute until the onions are tender and translucent. Stir in all the seasonings (through the lemon juice) and cook for another minute. Add the apples, apricot preserves, sultans, bread and almonds. Mix well and cook for another 2 minutes. Add the beef and stir until well incorporated with the onion mixture. Transfer mixture to prepared dish. Insert bay leaves at random intervals.
- Cover the dish with aluminum foil and place in over for 70 – 80 minutes, until beef is cooked through. While the beef is cooking, whisk the milk, eggs and salt until completely incorporated to create the topping.
- Once the beef has cooked, remove the dish from the oven and increase the oven temperature to 400. Remove the aluminum foil and the bay leave. Press the mixture flat if it has pulled away from the sides of the dish. Pour the milk and egg topping over the top of the cooked beef mixture and place back into the over, uncovered, for 15 – 20 minutes until the egg mixture has cooked.
Enjoy!
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