Bobotie fit for a President.

When Paul came home and saw this he was slightly overcome. Not by its beauty, because pretty it is not, but by one of the smells of his childhood.

I based this bobotie on the recipe given by Hilton Little at the Club des chefs des chefs event a couple of months ago, although I did make a few changes. I suspect he'd cut down the recipe from a much larger quantity and a couple of the proportions went a bit wrong.

Bobotie (serves 4)

Slosh of olive oil
2 medium onions, very finely diced
500g beef or lamb mince (Hilton's recipe says beef, Paul says he remembers lamb or mutton)
2 cloves of garlic, crushed
250ml whole milk
2 slices white bread (I used some stale sourdough, cut into cubes)
1tsp apricot jam (apricot is traditional, I didn't have any so used homemade peach, vanilla and chilli)
1tbs hot chutney (has to be Mrs Balls)
1-2tbs curry powder (I used a hot one, but it doesn't end up particularly spicy)
1tsp salt
1/2tsp ground black pepper
284ml buttermilk (that's how big the tubs we buy are - if your tubs are 250ml or 300ml I can't imagine that it would be a problem)
2 large eggs
bayleaves

Preheat oven to 180C

Soak the bread in the milk in a shallow dish.

Brown the onions in the oil in a large saute pan. Add the mince and garlic and brown the beef well, breaking up the clumps.

Squeeze the excess milk from the bread, reserve the milk and add the bread to the meat. Mix in the jam, chutney and curry powder. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the meat mixture into a 9x9" casserole dish.

Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs and the reserved milk from soaking the bread. Pour half of the mixture over the meat and ripple it through the meat mixture with a knife, so it soaks in.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, then remove from the oven, pour the rest of the egg mixture on top and garnish with bayleaves. Return it to the oven for another 20-30 minutes, until the top is golden brown. Serve hot.

The traditional accompaniments are yellow pilau rice, and old-school curry garnishes like bananas rolled in coconut, cucumber raita and tomato and onion katchumber. We had it with roast butternut and some buttered runner beans.