Cape Malay Bobotie

Bobotie came to South Africa via Malaysia, and is a sort of savory bread custard with lots of ground lamb/beef, curry, fruit and nuts. Make sure the ground lamb/beef you use is very, very lean.

Cape Malay Bobotie





Total time 2-1/2+ hours
Cooking time 60 minutes

The Filling

1 lb beef/lamb, minced
2 eggs
2 slices white bread, stale with crusts removed
1 onion, thinly sliced
2 tbsp cooking oil
2 tbsp hot water
2 tbsp sugar
6 almonds - chopped
½ cup golden raisins
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp curry powder
½ tsp ground cloves
1 tsp garlic, crushed
1 tsp turmeric
½ tsp salt

The Topping

1 egg, lightly beaten
½ cup milk
bay leaves or lemon leaves for garnishing


Pre-heat the oven to 325o F.
Soak the bread in water for 10 minutes, squeeze out the excess and then crumble.
In a large frying pan, heat the oil and braise the onion until golden.
Break the two eggs into a large bowl and beat lightly. Mix in the mince lamb/beef
Add the onion mixture from the frying pan, the hot water, lemon juice, crumbled bread, raisins, almonds, turmeric and sugar to the mince meat, mixing well.
Spoon the mixture into a well-greased, oven-proof dish and bake for 40 minutes, or until golden brown and then remove from the oven.

Topping
Combine the other egg with the milk and beat well.
Pour the mixture over the bobotie and arrange the bay/lemon leaves as garnish.
Return to the oven and bake at 350o F for 10 minutes, or until the topping is set.

Serve the Bobotie with a large salad and rice.

The Cape Malay Influence in South African Cooking

Chez é-sham...e-Zine® [Vol:3~Sept:04]

"For People Who Make Mistakes and Willing To Learn" ...

Welcome to an exceptional city, a place where dreamers find inspiration, where lovers are compelled to return, time and again.
This is Cape Town, a sophisticated city at the gateway to a majestic continent. Proudly conscious of itself, yet always subtle, the Mother city is both exhilaratingly modern aand humble, even down to earth.

Cape Malay Cooking

With their soft, caramel skins and wide smiles, the Cape Malay people are a prized and proud element of the South African culture.

The first group of Malaysian state prisoners landed on the shores of South Africa from Java and the neighboring Indonesian islands in the late 1600's. Many more followed in the years 1727 until 1749. Not only did this proud and attractive people bring with them the Moslem faith and fine architecture, they also brought with them a unique cookery style, introducing exciting mixtures of pungent spices that has had a heady influence on traditional South African cuisine. Indeed, the Malay-Portuguese words such as bobotie (a curried ground beef and egg custard dish), sosatie (kebabs marinated in a curry mixture) and bredie (slowly cooked stews rich in meat, tomatoes and spices) are integral in their cookery vocabulary.

Dr. Christian Louis Leipoldt, great Cape born surgeon, poet, esteemed chef and wine connoisseur who died in 1947, left a rich and amusing account and recipes for a number of Malay dishes in his book, 'Leipoldt's Cape Cookery', eventually published in 1976. Noted for his aversion to weights and measures, his recipes are liberally sprinkled with 'a hint of this' or 'a scattering', 'a pinch' of that.

Mother City - Cape Town

In 1946 he wrote of an interest in cookery that dated back to the late 1880's when he was just a small boy, where, under the guidance a spotless if obese, expert Cape Coloured woman, he greedily devoured her culinary magic and expertise in the preparation of Malay cookery. "The Ayah's art was the result of many years of instruction and experience in the traditional methods of Malay cookery, whose outstanding characteristics are the free, almost heroic use of spices and aromatic flavourings, the prolonged steady, but slow application of moist heat to all meat dishes, and the skillful blending of many diverse constituents into a combination that still holds the essential goodness of each," he wrote.

It all began in 1652, when the Cape of Good Hope was born, a stop in South Africa for ships of the East India Company of Holland on their way east. Immigrants from Europe, convicts from China, slaves from Mozambique and the prisoners from Java soon increased the populace of the seaside village bringing with them their unique cookery skills. A multi-ethnic cuisine emerged, and one can only imagine the aromas emanating from kitchens producing highly spiced dishes from Dutch, Italian, Portuguese and especially oriental recipes handed down for generations.

The Malay influence comes through in the curries, chilies and extensive use of spices such as ginger, cinnamon and turmeric. More Malay magic comes through the use of fruit cooked with meat, marrying sweet and savoury flavours, with hints of spice, curry and other seasonings. The food has a nuance of seductive spiciness, true testament to the culinary capabilities of Malay women world wide. I cannot think of a dried apricot without the image of a caramel coloured woman, grinning widely, a wooden spoon in her hand, gently stirring a pot of simmering curry and fruit. Splendid!

Leipoldt wrote;
"To make a bobotie it is necessary to have clean hands, for you must knead the meat as you do a dough. Take then of tender mutton and the backstring (fillet) of pork of each a pound in weight, and that without fat or hard part; pound it vigourously in your mortar, with a handful of blanched almonds, 12 pepper corns, a slice of green ginger, a chili, a leaf of the herb marjoram, some coriander seeds, a very small piece of fresh garlic, or if you have none of it, half a leaf of an onion, and the grated rind of a lemon, and work into it half a cupful of wine in which you have soaked an ounce of tamarind. Let it stand overnight. Then, beat into it half a cupful of cream and two tablespoonsful of good butter, not too much salt, and knead it well. Shape it into a round loaf and put it into an earthenware pie-dish that you have well smeared inside with butter and sprinkled with a few cumin seeds. Put it in the oven and when it gets hot and expands, but not before, pour over it two cups of milk in which you have beaten up the yolks of three eggs and a tablespoonsful of curry powder such as you may get at the Malay store. Let it bake till it is well set, and then put upon it a few blanched almonds and a grating of nutmeg. Before you send it to table you may, if you are not pleased with its top colour, pass a hot salamander over it."

I think that Cape Malay bobotie recipe may be a little simpler and just as good. However, for the hardy and brave, try this method and enjoy a little bit of South Africa.

Syrup of Sekanjabin

God's wrath is His vinegar, mercy His honey.
These two are the basis of every oxymel.
If vinegar overpowers honey, a remedy is spoiled.
The people of the earth poured vinegar on Noah;
the Ocean of Divine Bounty poured sugar.
The Ocean replenished his sugar,
and overpowered the vinegar of the whole world.

Rumi

Syrup of Sekanjabin

Sekanjabin is a medieval Arabic version of oxymel, which is a general term for medicinal drinks combining vinegar with sugar syrup or honey. It is probably first mentioned by the ancient Greek medical writer Hippocrates, who prescribes it extensively and comments that, among other things, “it promotes expectoration and freedom of breathing.” (Hippocrates, On Regimen in Acute Diseases, tr. Francis Adams). The Anglo-Saxons also knew it: an old Anglo-Saxon leechbook mentions oxymel as “a southern acid drink” (Cockayne vol II p. 153), and suggests betony in oxymel as a relief “if a man is tired by a long journey” (p.152). Later the writer gives the recipe for oxymel, together with the injunction to drink it for “the half dead disease” (p. 285), or for epilepsy. Platina, a 15th-century Italian writer, mentions honey/vinegar oxymel several times, suggesting it as a remedy for the harmful effects of melons (Milham p. 127). Andalusian Sekanjabin likewise has a medicinal slant, since it is described as being “beneficial for fevers of jaundice, and calms jaundice and cuts the thirst” (see recipe below). Like most Arabic syrups, it was intended to be drunk with hot water as a medicinal draught, although they were probably also drunk cold for refreshment.

The concept of using a basic oxymel infused with herbal flavour of some sort is fairly universal; the Anglo-Saxon leechbook suggests infusing it with radish as well as betony, and Hippocrates speaks of infusing oxymel with asafoetida and carrot, or opoponax and southernwood (whatever those are). Cariadoc’s mint version doesn’t seem to be much of a leap, particularly given the modern sekanjabins he notes in ethnic restaurants and the parallel Andalusian recipe for mint syrup

Total time 2-1/2+ hours
Cooking time 30 minutes
Cooling 2+ hours

4 cups sugar
2 cups water
1 cup white vinegar
1/2 cup lemon juice
1 cup fresh mint leaves, plus 1 sprig per glass


In a heavy pan over medium heat, bring sugar and water to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes, then add vinegar and lemon juice and continue boiling until the syrup drips slowly from the end of a cold spoon. Lower the heat, add mint and simmer for 3 more minutes. Strain the syrup into a jar and let it cool. To serve, place an almond at the bottom of a glass, pour in 3 tbsp. of syrup, add ice water and stir. Garnish with a sprig of mint. You may also add a little grated cucumber to the glass.

*The syrup stores without refrigeration

Mint & Lemon Drink

Ho, saki, haste, the beaker bring,
Fill up, and pass it round the ring.
Love seemed at first an easy thing —
But ah! the hard awakening.

Hafiz

Mint & Lemon Drink

Served after a meal, this is an excellent aid to digestion.

Total time 10 minutes

6 tbsp. grated lemon zest (about 3 lemons)
8 cups water
6 tsp. dried mint


Bring freshly drawn water to a boil. Add the lemon zest and mint and boil for 1 minute. Strain into cups and serve hot, with or without sugar.

Coffee — The Wine of Islam

Chez é-sham...e-Zine® [Vol:2~Aug:04]

"For People Who Make Mistakes and Willing To Learn" ...

Most modern coffee-drinkers are probably unaware of coffee's heritage in the Sufi orders of Southern Arabia. Members of the Shadhiliyya order are said to have spread coffee-drinking throughout the Islamic world sometime between the 13th and 15th centuries CE. A Shadhiliyya shaikh was introduced to coffee-drinking in Ethiopia, where the native highland bush, its fruit and the beverage made from it were known as bun. It is possible, though uncertain, that this Sufi was Abu'l Hasan 'Ali ibn Umar, who resided for a time at the court of Sadaddin II, a sultan of Southern Ethiopia. 'Ali ibn Umar subsequently returned to the Yemen with the knowledge that the berries were not only edible, but promoted wakefulness. To this day the shaikh is regarded as the patron saint of coffee-growers, coffee-house proprietors and coffee-drinkers, and in Algeria coffee is sometimes called shadhiliyye in his honor.

The beverage became known as qahwa — a term formerly applied to wine —and ultimately, to Europeans, as "The Wine of Islam." It became popular among the Sufis to boil up the grounds and drink the brew to help them stay awake during their night dhikr. (Roasting the beans was a later improvement developed by the Persians.)

The Shadhili Abu Bakar ibn Abd'Allah al-'Aydarus was impressed enough by its effects that he composed a qasida (poem) in honor of the drink. Coffee-drinkers even coined their own term for the euphoria it produced — marqaha. The mystic and theologian Shaikh ibn Isma'il Ba Alawi of Al-Shihr stated that the use of coffee, when imbibed with prayerful intent and devotion, could lead to the experience of qahwa ma'nawiyya ("the ideal qahwa") and qahwat al-Sufiyya, interchangeable terms defined as "the enjoyment which the people of God feel in beholding the hidden mysteries and attaining the wonderful disclosures and the great revelations."

The Shadiliyya dervishes were active in the world; it is said that Shaikh Abul Hasan ash-Shadhili, the founder of the order, was reluctant to take on a student who did not already have a profession. It soon became apparent that coffee's benefits could be extended to the workday and the local economy as well. The southern Arabian climate was ideal for coffee cultivation, and the ports of Yemen, particularly the port of Mocha, became the world's primary exporters of coffee.