Omg, Someone Make Us This White‑Bread Frankenstein Casserole Right Away
Omg, Someone Make Us This White‑Bread Frankenstein Casserole Right Away
Bobotie in Franschhoek
Autumn in South Africa is beautiful, and offers the occasional breezy respite from its standard blistering forecast. This morning, no such luck. I am visiting my mother and father in Franschhoek, where they grow pears and apples and I abuse their parental charity. After shuffling my way to the kitchen, cotton-mouthed and bleary-eyed, I land upon the remains of last night’s dinner. Bobotie.
At first glance, this Cape Malay classic could be the kitchen-sink dish nightmares are made of. In what I imagine can only be an extremely oversized saucepan, minced meat is combined with miscellaneous dried fruits, buttered onions, and peach chutney before milk-moistened white bread chunks are folded in. Then this glorious glop is blended, poured into a casserole, topped with a curry-laced egg custard, and broiled.
My mother, though a wonderful cook, likes to strictly adhere to recipes. That bobotie is endlessly malleable and subject to hundreds of different interpretations proves troublesome to her perfectionism, so she outsources this most treasured of dishes. Cafe Tramurei’s iteration is lamb-based, laced with apricots, and accompanied by rice stained neon with turmeric. (Apricots are added to many Malay dishes, often as unwelcome saccharine invaders into an otherwise perfectly lovely savory dish. Here, it works.)
Not only delightfully fun to say, bobotie is the most aptly Frankensteinian of feasts, a blend of the myriad cultures and flavors that make up South Africa. On this morning, through a light hangover and heavy humidity, it is particularly perfect. In the glow of the open fridge door, each spoonful parties its way across each part of my palate—sweet, salty, funky, pungent. It is cacophonous, confusing, and more than a little ugly. In this moment, it’s utterly beautiful.