Recipes / Potjie
Bobotie potjie
Curried beef mince with chutney, raisins and soaked bread, topped with a bay-leaf egg custard and set with coals on the lid of a flat-bottomed potjie.
- Prep
- 20 min
- On the fire
- 1 hr 15 min
- Serves
- 6
- Done at
- 160°F (71°C)
Ingredients
Custard topping
Method
Cooking on gas?
- A potjie works well on gas, and the heat is easier to hold steady than coals.
- Use a gas ring, your grill's side burner, or stand the pot on the grates over one burner with the grill lid open. Check that it can take the weight of a full pot.
- Where the recipe says hot or medium coals for browning, use a medium-high flame. Where it says low coals or a few coals under the pot, turn it down to the lowest flame that keeps a gentle bubble. You will not need to add fresh coals.
- Tear the bread into a bowl and pour the milk over it. Leave it to soak while you start the fire.
- Set a flat-bottomed potjie of about 5 litres (5 quarts), or a cast-iron Dutch oven, over medium coals. Heat the oil and cook the onions for 5 to 8 minutes until soft but not brown.
- Add the garlic, ginger, curry powder, turmeric, coriander and cumin. Stir for 1 minute.
- Add the mince. Cook it for about 10 minutes, breaking up the lumps with a wooden spoon, until it has lost its pink colour.
- Squeeze the milk out of the bread and keep that milk for the topping. Crumble the bread into the pot.
- Stir in the chutney, jam, raisins, lemon juice, salt, pepper and almonds. Put the lid on, rake the coals down to a handful under the pot, and simmer for 15 minutes, stirring once or twice.
- Take the lid off and press the mince down into a flat, even layer with the back of the spoon.
- Top up the saved milk to 250 ml (1 cup). Whisk it with the eggs, turmeric and salt, and pour it slowly over the mince.
- Push the bay leaves upright into the custard. Put the lid on.
- Leave only 3 or 4 coals under the pot and pile 12 to 15 hot coals on the lid. Bake for 30 to 40 minutes, adding a few fresh coals to the lid after 20 minutes.
Done when: the custard is set and no longer wobbles in the middle, the edges are golden, and a thermometer in the mince layer reads 71°C (160°F).
Tips
- Most of the heat must come from the lid. Too many coals underneath burn the mince before the custard sets.
- Brush the ash off the lid with a dry brush before you lift it, so none falls on the custard.
- Serve with yellow rice, extra chutney and a sliced banana and tomato sambal.
Bobotie is one of the oldest dishes of the Cape Malay community, whose ancestors were brought to the Cape from the Dutch East Indies from the 1600s. The sweet and sour curried mince with a set egg topping is usually baked in an oven. Cooking it in a flat-bottomed potjie with coals on the lid gives the same result outdoors. If you are new to the pot, read potjie basics first.