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- Photo: AfricanVillageW / Flickr
Bobotie is made from minced meat in its traditional South African form but this recipe, which is over a hundred years old, uses white fish instead. The story goes that a certain Mr Henry Cloete, owner of a well-known wine estate at the time, was tired of the old recipe and suggested a change to fish bobotie. The ingredients include eggs, bread and fish masala. Optional lemon leaves and almonds are required to decorate the dish, which is best served with white rice.
Ingredients for six
You will need a kilogram of any kind of white fish or stockfish for this recipe. You will also need 30 ml of freshly squeezed lemon juice, 15 ml of fat-free milk powder, a 2 cm thick slice of white bread with its crust, 1 onion of medium size that has been finely chopped, 10 ml of butter, 20 ml of fish masala, 10 ml of sugar, 2 large eggs at room temperature, 12 blanched almonds, some fresh lemon leaves, 125 ml of whole milk and salt and pepper.
Preparation
Place a little water into a saucepan, season it and add 10 ml of the lemon juice. Poach the fish, remove it from the liquid stock and allow it to cool. Flake the fish once it is cool.
In the meantime, measure up 250 ml of the stock and mix in the milk powder. Pour the liquid into a shallow container and soak the bread. Once soaked, remove the bread and squeeze it, keeping all the squeezed out liquid for the egg custard. Strain the liquid and mash the bread.
In a covered saucepan, gently fry the onions in the butter. When the onions are just transparent, add the remainder of the lemon juice, the masala and the sugar. Stir the ingredients together and allow them to simmer for five minutes in the covered saucepan.
Remove the sauce from the stove and add it to the flaked fish. Stir the mashed bread into the fish mixture and allow it to cool. Once cooled, add a lightly beaten egg and mix well. Once the ingredients are incorporated, spoon the fish mixture into a buttered dish.
Finish the fish bobotie
Pre-heat your oven to 140 degrees Celsius.
To finish the dish, smooth the mixture down well. Remove the stems from the lemon leaves and twist them into cone shapes. Stick a leaf into the mixture at various points so that each serving gets to have a leaf. Finish decorating the dish by inserting the almonds into the mixture so that the round ends point upwards.
Place the remaining egg into a bowl with the whole milk and the residue liquid from the bread. Whisk these ingredients together (seasoning to taste should you wish) and gently pour the egg custard over the top of the dish (without disturbing the leaves and almonds).
Bake on the oven’s lower shelf in a pan of boiling water for 40 minutes (or until the custard has set).
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