Jack’s Taste Of South Africa

 

Yes…Jack is back with another African dish, this time one inspired by South Africa. He and his gorgeous sous chef (that’s me!) are making a lentil bobotie. What, you may ask, is a bobotie? Well…this is what we were aiming for:

We followed a recipe from the Le Creuset website (ooh la la they have some nice recipes!) The only difficulty we had is trying to figure out what cups meant. We think one cup is roughly 256 ml. We accidentally put way too much of the liquid ingredients in because we were guessing.

Lentil Bobotie

I was very excited about this dish because I love lentils and I love spices!

I preheated the oven for Jack to 190ºc…and it was my job to do the veg prep (there was not as much as with the other dish Jack made).

These are the ingredients:

• 2 tbsp olive oil
• 2 large chopped onions
• 3 crushed garlic cloves
• 2 grated carrots
• 4 x 400g cans lentils, drained & rinsed
• 10 peppercorns
• 125ml store-bought fruit chutney (I bought spiced apple and pear chutney)
• 2–3 tbsp garam masala
• 1 tbsp ground cumin
• 1 tbsp ground coriander
• 3 tbsp medium curry powder
• 2 tsp turmeric
• 3 bay leaves
• Salt & milled black pepper to taste

So….here we go:

The first step was to heat the olive oil in a pan. Then Jack added the onion and fried it gently for 5 minutes, until they were soft and golden.

Meanwhile the sous chef was measuring out the other ingredients. I had to keep checking the recipe because I thought I was mistaken. A huge amount of spice goes into this dish.

Jack added the spices, peppercorns, garlic, chutney, grated carrot and lentils to the softened onions and mixed all of the ingredients together.

Then he transferred the lentil mix to a large ovenproof dish and flattened the surface, before laying three bay leaves on top.

Now it was time to prepare the topping:

These are the ingredients for the topping:

• ½ cup cream (which we think is about 130ml)
• ½ cup milk (again…our guess is 130ml)
• 3 eggs, beaten
• Generous pinch salt & black pepper

Did you notice that Jack thought of me? He is a keeper! He bought soya cream and lactose free milk because he knows I struggle with dairy.

I think we put too much milk and cream in, I think we accidentally doubled the required quantity. Anyway…after mixing the ingredients, Jack poured it over the lentil mix.

Then, Jack placed it into the oven and left it to bake at 190ºc for 45 minutes…which was just enough time to… (er…wash the dishes?)

Et voilà:

 

We should have used that 45 minutes to prepare a nice fresh salad to serve with the bobotie.

I loved the taste of this dish! It is everything I hoped – stunning spicy lentils – just my cup of tea. I am going to be asking Jack if we can make his again and again.

You might be able to tell that I am very glad to have Jack back. There is a tune that stirs up strong feelings about all the memories of working over in Africa. It’s a beautiful melody for this time on a Sunday morning…