This magnificent, but strange and heady dish, tells a story

THE DISH

Bobotie, South Africa

PLATE UP
There’s a reason bobotie is often considered the national dish of South Africa, and it’s not just the taste: this is a casserole that tells a story, a concoction that couldn’t exist without South Africa’s complex history of colonisation and subjugation. We’ll get to that in a second. First though, let’s bask in the strange and heady magnificence of bobotie: it begins with chopped onions, which are sweated down and then mixed with beef or lamb mince, plus garlic, curry powder, dried herbs, cloves, allspice, sultanas, bay leaves, water-soaked bread, and Mrs H.S. Ball’s chutney. That’s all browned in a pan, then topped with a custard of milk and eggs, and baked. It’s served with rice and/or sambal.

FIRST SERVE
This is a little tricky. It’s clear that the dish that forms the basis of bobotie was introduced to South Africa by Dutch colonists (there’s a similar dish dating back to Roman times). However, there’s evidence that that dish had already been altered by the food of another Dutch outpost, in South-East Asia. In South Africa, bobotie was adopted and adapted by the Cape Malay community – many of whom were slaves and labourers with roots in modern-day Indonesia – with the addition of curry powder, as well as the spices typically being transported by the Dutch East India Company from Indonesia to the Netherlands. The name is thought to be an adaptation of a Javanese dish called “bobotok”.

ORDER THERE
Visitors to Cape Town interested in sampling bobotie should head to Bo-Kaap Kombuis (bokaapkombuis.co.za), a traditional family-run eatery in the traditionally Cape Malay area of Bo-Kaap.

ORDER HERE
Bobotie is easy to cook at home. To get the correct ingredients (plus some biltong for the road), in Sydney head to African Vibe in Balgowlah (africanvibe.com.au), and in Melbourne try The South African Shop in Caulfield South (thesouthafricanshop.com.au).

ONE MORE THING
Bobotie is an iconic South African food that contains another iconic South African food: Mrs H.S. Ball’s chutney. This fruity concoction has been around since the 1870s, and is as cherished in South Africa as rugby victories and jokes about Australians.