Eating Around the World- African Bobotie

Looks good doesn't it? That is a Bobotie, or South African fruit and meat pie.

Lately I have been trying to vary our meals and introduce a wider variety of flavors into my kids diets. One way we are doing this is by testing out the traditional dishes of other countries. We used to do this on significant holidays for the countries and tried to learn about about the holidy. That is a practice I think we will be starting up again.  Anybody have a list of religious and national holidays around the world??


 The Bobotie is a traditional South African dish with  nuts, curry and beef and an egg topping. We don't really eat fruit and meat together very often so it was something I wanted to give a try. My kids love raisins and apricots so I thought that they would really like to try them in this dish. They loved the sweetness of the fruit with the mild heat of the curry. It was a really interesting and delicious meal.

The base component of the pie is bread cubes soaked in milk.





and lots of tender onions and garlic.




Ground beef is added and browned and then mixed with the rest of the ingredients.
The pie is baked and fills the air with the most amazing aroma.  The end result is a delicous meat pie!







Bobotie

1 onion
1 clove garlic
2 oz dried apricots
2 slices white bread
2 cups milk
2 tablespoons butter
1 lb ground beef
1 tsp mild curry powder
1/2 tsp chili powder
2 tbls lemon juice
salt and pepper
2 oz raisins
4 tbls flaked almonds
2 eggs

Peel onion and chop it finely. Peel and crush  the clove of garlic. Chop the dried apricots finely.
Tear the bread into pieces and put into a shallow bowl with half milk. Leave it to soak.

Melt the butter in a frying pan cook onion and garlic over low heat for 5 minutes until they are soft.
Add the ground beef. Cook it for another five minutes, stirring it all the time until it is brown all over.

Mix the curry powder, chili powder lemon juice, and a pinch of salt and pepper in a bowl. Add the meat mixture.

Add the raisins, almonds, apricots and soaked bread. Stir in the remaining milk that the bread was soaked in.

Spoon the mixture into the greased dish. Whisk the eggs and the rest of the milk together. pour it over the meat.

Put the dish into the oven and bake it for 45-50 minutes until the topping has set and turned golden.