A few years ago we had a summer holiday in southern Germany, including a stay in Heidelberg. We spent an afternoon visiting wineries on the German Wine Route (Deutsche Weinstraße) and made a stop at Hammel & Cie. Their wines are delicious and very reasonably priced—we had a box of 12 wines shipped home to avoid getting them too warm in our car, and we’ve been ordering from them ever since.
Our last delivery included a little cookbook prepared by their team, with recipes and suggested pairing with their wines. I came across this recipe for Bobotie and was inspired to make it, with a few variations of adding cabbage and substituting coconut milk for milk as Ralph recently eliminated dairy from his diet. I also added basil leaves on top for colour and taste.
What also inspired me to make this dish was that I had a jar of homemade mango chutney and apricot marmalade in the cupboard, thanks to my friend Tricia. I ended up dividing out the rest of the jams into separate containers to make this dish again.
Another inspiration for this dish is that it’s a specialty from South Africa, so I thought of my friend Banie. He’ll have to teach me how to pronounce the name!
I’m normally not a fan of adding something sweet to my dinner plate, but the combination of the chutney, marmalade, curry, and turmeric delivers an amazing balance of sweet and savoury.
Casseroles are a great weekday dinner meal, as they’re usually not complicated to put together and make great leftovers. The only challenge is putting up with the delicious aroma coming from your oven while you wait for it to finish.
Ingredients:
- 500g ground beef
- 2 onions, chopped
- 200g cabbage, chopped
- 2 Tbsp mango chutney
- 1 Tbsp apricot marmalade
- Lemon juice QB
- 2 tsp curry powder
- 1 tsp turmeric
- 3 eggs
- 1/2 cup coconut milk
- 1 Tbsp Olive oil
- Salt & pepper QB
- 4 bay leaves
- Basil leaves to garnish
- Basmati rice (optional)
Instructions:
- Preheat over to 180 °C (350 °F)
- Heat olive oil in large oven-proof pan (I used our Le Creuset).
- Add the onions and cabbage, sauté until tender, about 10 minutes.
- Add ground beef and cook until browned.
- Add the jams, spices, salt, pepper, and squeeze of lemon. Taste and adjust to your liking. Remove from burner and evenly form the mixture.
- Whisk the eggs and coconut milk together. Pour mixture over casserole. Top with bay leaves.
- Bake in oven for 45-60 minutes until the top is a nice golden colour.
- Serve over rice and garnish with basil leaves.
🥂 Wine pairing: WEINGUT HAMMEL Blaue Stunde
We are cookin' with gas! 