Bobotie with Yellow Rice

Bobotie with Yellow Rice

Keyword Birdseye Pepper

Prep Time 20

Cook Time 1

Total Time 1 20

Servings servings

Calories 1121kcal

Ingredients

For the bobotie

6 fresh red bird’s eye chilies roughly chopped, seeds and all
¾ pound ground beef I used beef with a fat content of 20% – same as I would to make a fine burger patty
2 slices white bread thick slices, crusts removed, and roughly broken into chunks. Bread that’s a little stale is grand, but fresh will do. The loaf-sized slices I used were about 1/3-inch thick.
2 cups whole fat milk
2 yellow onions medium-sized, peeled, and cut into ¼-inch dice
6 cloves garlic peeled and thinly sliced
3 ounces seedless raisins
3 ounces flaked almonds
2 tablespoons mild chutney I used a mild, sweetish mango variety
1 tablespoon ground masala spice mix
1 teaspoon ground allspice this sometimes gets tagged as pimenton
2 teaspoons ground cumin
2 teaspoons ground cilantro
1 heaped teaspoon ground turmeric
½ teaspoon ground cloves
1 ½ teaspoons tamarind paste thoroughly dissolved in 2 tablespoons of boiling water
10 bay leaves fresh is grand, but dried will be fine
3 eggs medium-sizes, fresh, free-range is best
1 heaped teaspoon ground sea salt
1 heaped teaspoon ground black pepper
2 tablespoons salted butter
2 tablespoons sunflower oil or canola oil

For the simple yellow rice

2 cups long grain white basmati rice
1½ ounces seedless raisins
1 heaped teaspoon ground turmeric
1 stick cinnamon the piece I used was about 1/3-inch thick and 2 inches long
1 heaped teaspoon ground sea salt

US Customary - Metric

Instructions

Cooking the bobotie

To begin, set your oven to 350F / 180C.
Add the bread to a large mixing bowl and pour in 1 cup of milk. Use a bowl big enough to eventually hold the bread, milk, and all the beef. (The other cup of milk is going to get beaten together with the eggs for your bobotie’s topping.) Give the lot a mixing with your fingers so that the bread can absorb the milk.
Now add the butter and oil to a saucepan set on a medium-high heat. Use a pan that will easily hold all your bobotie’s ingredients, except for the egg-and-milk mix.
As soon as the buttery oil mix starts foaming, stir in the onions, drop the heat to medium, and let the onions fry gently with a few stirs for about 7 minutes. You want the onions to soften and to just start picking up a little golden color.
Once that happens, thoroughly stir in the chilies, garlic, salt, black pepper, all the ground spices, tamarind paste and its water, and 4 bay leaves. (The remaining leaves are going to decorate the top of your bobotie.) Keep the heat on medium and let the mix cook gently for 3 minutes with a couple of stirs.
Mix in the ground beef. Drop the heat to low-medium. You’re aiming to let the whole lot cook until the beef just starts to lose its pinkish-red color. That’ll take about 3 minutes on that low-medium heat – with plenty of regular stirring to break the beef apart and let it brown slightly all over. Good. Remove the pan from the heat – almost time to mix the spicy beef with the milk-soaked bread.
You’ll need to use your hands to squeeze any excess milk from the bread – and to reserve all that excess milk. Now, you might find there isn’t any excess to squeeze out and keep. That’s fine. If there is any excess, you want to keep it and use it to form the 1 cup of milk for your custardy topping.
Once the bread is ‘drained’, add all the spicy beef to your big mixing bowl. Mix thoroughly. And I mean thoroughly. You need to make sure that the milky bread gets completely combined with the spicy beef. Completely combined. Good. Time now for some baking.
Transfer the beef-and-bread mix to a baking dish. The dish needs to big enough to hold all the mix with at least ½-inch spare at the top of the dish. Ideally, you want the mix to form an even, smooth-topped layer about 1½ inches thick. And do take some care to get that smooth, flat top.
Set the dish on a middle shelf in your 350F / 180C oven. Let it bake for 30 minutes. While that’s happening, you’ll have ample time to prep the custardy topping and make your yellow rice.
The topping is really easy – simply beat the eggs together with 1 cup of milk. If you did have some excess milk from the bread, use that and top it up to 1 cup with fresh milk.
Once the 30 minutes’ baking is done, remove the dish from the oven and pour the egg-and-milk mix over the top. Drop your oven’s temperature to 300F / 150C. Now arrange the remaining 6 bay leaves in a pretty pattern on top of the egg mix.
Return your topped and decorated bobotie to the 300F / 150C oven, and let it bake until the topping sets – that’ll take about 20 minutes or so. Check on the topping, and if it hasn’t set, let it bake for a few more minutes. That’s it. Your bobotie’s done.

Cooking the yellow rice

For the rice, simply follow the instructions on the pack. The only difference here is that you add the rice and all the other ingredients to the boiling water – all at the same time.
Let the rice cook as instructed, and that’s it. Your yellow rice is ready to serve alongside your bobotie.

Notes

Optional accompaniments

My preference is to make a very simple sambal-like mix of diced cherry tomatoes, some finely diced onion, and a good handful of roughly chopped fresh cilantro leaves.
For four people, I’d use a dozen cherry tomatoes cut into a 1/3-inch dice. To that I’d add ½ a medium size yellow onion, peeled and finely chopped into 1/8-inch dice. It’s a very simple sambal to make, and brings in a colorful, fresh-tasting contrast to the richness of the bobotie.

Nutrition