The artist Claire de Jong is one of my most trusted cooking buddies with whom I love doing "ping pong" cooking at any time. Among her extensive culinary skills, she has a huge talent for Cape Malay cooking and a love of bizarre Cape dialects that I also share. So what could go wrong in the kitchen?
'n Donnerse krokodil
I never miss an opportunity to wax lyrical about Cape Malay cuisine, a unique cooking style that has filtered down through generations. It was originally the cooking of Indonesian slaves brought to the Cape by Dutch colonisers; Asian but also very much elaborating their Muslim culture in the 17th century and later absorbing African influences.
This is one of those classic dishes that has since become a "national" dish in South Africa. And so it should, because it's bloody delicious.
The first person who ever cooked this dish for me was the geezer in charge of my grandmother's garden. He'd been born in Cape Town and was one of the first people to introduce my siblings and I to Cape Malay cooking on visits to my grandmother. It was always fun watching him and my grandmother communicate. He spoke Afrikaans with a thick Capetonian twang and she, a petite woman from the UK, never attempted to speak Afrikaans. But somehow they understood each other perfectly, especially when it came to the rose garden.
My grandfather William Kenneth, for whom I was named, had two passions: roses and Noël Coward. And, he'd often combine them, belting out 'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' as he pruned madly in the Highveld heat. After his shockingly early death, it was important to Bertha to maintain the rose garden.
One day when we were staying with her, my brother Alastair and I were surreptitiously trying to fish koi out of the fish pond, careful to stay out of her view as we messed with her precious fish.
It was still early morning—I remember the dew on the grass—as she sauntered out to the post box to check for mail. As she approached the post box, this lizard—I don't know their proper name, we just called them "bloukop lizards"—pounced out of the letter box. My grandmother Bertha was unphased.
But Solomon—I think that was his name, but it was so long ago, I've probably misremembered—jumped up from where he was turning compost into the soil around the roses.
"Passop, missus! Passop!"
My grandmother just looked at him and smiled. "It's just a lizard," she said.
"Neeee, missus! Dat is 'n Donnerse krokodil!"
After that day, "donnerse krokodil" became a bit of a catchphrase in out household. My dad Denton totally embraced it, a huge fan of colourful idioms. And, indeed bloukop lizards and letter boxes also seemed to become a thing. Some years later my younger sister Margo, while still a small child, went out to check the letterbox and ran shrieking back into the house. "There's a blizzard in the post box!". One expected that she had just found Godzilla lurking in a leafy suburb.
Denton, our father, comforted her as she clung to his legs in real fear. Far above her tiny frame, he said very quietly to me: "She's not allowed to do the weather report."
Claire's Cape Town bobotie is very mild. Just to give you some idea, my partner Luc is one of those Flemish dudes who can't really do spicy. In his case, it's not so much not liking the flavour of hot food as kicking off actual pain; one of those IBS people. Yet, not only did he love this dish, it caused him no indigestion whatsoever.
Claire's take on the classic bobotie is also pretty much halfway between veggie and carnivore, so it's easy to work out how you could take it in either direction; maybe
"I like doing it with half soya and half lamb because the lamb is just so fatty. Kaka, man! You know what I mean?"
This recipe feeds 4 diners (unlike the picture above which was for 8).
Shopping list
250g soya mince
250g minced lean lamb
½ a cup of large seedless raisins or currants
8 cardamom pods
3 tspns mild Madras curry powder
3 tspns Garam Masala
3 tbspns grated fresh ginger
3 tspns crushed fresh garlic
I large finely diced white or brown onion
2 teaspoons turmeric
2 bay leaves
4 eggs
Full fat milk, to taste
A little sunflower oil or vegetable oil
Salt to taste
Coarse polenta or cornmeal, about 3 tbspns or more if needed
Cooking method
for Claire's Cape Town Bobotie
Heat a little sunflower oil in a pan and add the onions. Sweat until they turn golden
Add all of the spices, garlic and ginger. Once they begin to cook, first add the lamb, followed by the soya mince, stirring to prevent sticking. Mix with the spices and all the other ingredients
Mix in the polenta, adding a little water if necessary. When the mixture begins to bond, turn off the heat
Transfer the mixture from the pot to an oven-proof dish, greased with a little sunflower oil using clean fingers or a pastry brush. Bake in the middle of a pre-heated oven at 180°C/350°F/gas mark 4 for about 10 to 15 minutes
Meanwhile, beat the eggs in a jug. Add a little milk, much as you would when making a quiche mixture
Remove the meat/soya mixture from the oven and pour the egg and milk mixture over the top so that it is entirely covered
Lay bay leaves on top of the egg and return to the oven, baking for another 20 to 35 mins at the middle of the oven at the same temperature, until the egg has fully firmed without being overcooked
Turn off the heat and allow the dish to settle before serving
for the accompaniments
There are a number of traditional accompaniments with which bobotie should be served.
The most traditional side dish is basmati rice with turmeric; a particularly South African riff on the Asian kitchen, either boiled/steamed or braised in the oven and, in the South African manner, yellow, by adding a heaped tspn of turmeric while it cooks.
But, the sambals and other side dishes are a really important part of this cuisine, munched on the side or spooned directly on to the main dish and they include:
Poppadoms, oven-heated in the usual way before serving
Sliced raw onion
Every kind of chutney you can get your hands on, all the better if it's Mrs H.S. Balls South African chutney
"klapper met piesang"; an onomatopoeic joke in Dutch — thinly sliced banana and desiccated coconut in fresh milk
pawpaw and chopped coriander dressed with lemon or lime juice
"traditioniel" - cubed fresh cucumber, tomato and raw onion in malt vinegar
Alternatives
To go fully vegetarian, simply swap out the lamb mince for the equivalent in soya mince. Unfortunately it's a little more difficult for vegans since, like a lot of dishes originating in Indonesia, the eggs as an intrinsic part of this recipe. I've yet to come up with a viable alternative. I did once try a kind of béchamel made with almond milk but the end result was more like a curried lasagne; not horrible, but simply not bobotie.
If you want to go more meaty, it's not as simple. The original version of this dish (the one Claire simplified and improved) is prone to fattiness because of the lamb. So, if you hate soya but want to go more meaty, following the more traditional version of the recipie, you need to:
Use 400g lean lamb mince
And 100g brown bread soaked in milk
After cooking the lamb in the spices, at the stage that you're getting ready to put these ingredients into the oven for the fist time, break the milk-soaked brown bread into the mixture and thoroughly stir in before baking in the oven as per the recipe
Pairings
Obviously this is one that we need Karel on. He already did this for us (actually, some of the wines he recommended before may be in the glasses in some of the images shown here). But, needless to say, I've lost all the details when I most need them.
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