Believe it or not, this 12th edition marks our first anniversary of Monthly Mystery Munchies since Gen and I buddied-up post Blogging 201 a year ago on May, 1st 2015. We started off with Mexican as our inaugural theme – Gen made Chilli Corn Carne and I made Real Cheesy Cottage Cheese Enchilada for our very first challenge.
This is no April Fool’s joke. We have come a long way away since then and between the both of us who are by no means professional chefs, we brewed up more than 24 recipes which we have managed to consistently feature on every first Friday of the month based on an agreed theme. We take turns to come up with the monthly challenge.
The twist to this is that neither of us knows what the other person would be dishing up based on the theme chosen by the other person. We then post our recipes roughly at the same time. So far, we have not coincidentally made the same dish.
One year! What a milestone and through these months, I am so very honoured to have found a blogging friend who is not only creative with her cooking but an extremely talented cook. Gen pushes the envelope when it comes to creative cooking.
In looking back, I am beyond amazed at what we both have accomplished despite her being in South Africa and me, in Bangkok Thailand. In Gen, I have found a fabulous friend and in the world of blogging, there are no borders to friendship. Thank you, Gen, and here’s a very happy first anniversary to us!
I take no credit for this month’s theme of making each other’s country of origin dish as it was actually suggested by Silver Bullet. When I posed the challenge to Gen, I almost fell off my chair when she told me that her husband has also suggested the same barely 2 days before she got my email. How crazy freaky is that?!
So, in honour of our 1st anniversary of Monthly Mystery Challenge #12, we agreed that I will make a dish from South Africa and Gen a dish from Singapore. That agreed, here’s the surprising fact from my end: Silver Bullet decided that he would make an attempt on an authentic South African cuisine called Bobotie inspired from Yummly. (Sorry, Gen. Don’t kill me! This was Silver Bullet’s and his alone.)
Epicurious stated that the Bobotie is a Cape-Malay creation which is spiced up with coriander, cumin and cloves. Bobotie was even selected for an international recipe book published by the United Nations Organisation back in 1951. That is pretty special!
Without further ado, let me present Silver Bullet’s creation:
He made only one modification of not using chutney; only because we were not able to find it here. Instead, he experimented with a bunch of ingredients to make chutney from scratch. Otherwise, he killed it and did not miss out on the yellow rice or raisin. My verdict: This is supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
- 3-4 tbsp olive oil
- 3 onions chopped
- 2 tspn pressed garlic
- 1 kg ground beef
- 4 teaspoons curry powder
- 1 tspn turmeric powder
- Salt & pepper to taste
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 small jar of apricot jam
- ½ cup of chutney (we did not use this and substituted it with a small jar of lime jam, 1-2 cm of chopped ginger, 1 tspn vinegar and 1 piece dried chilli, some brown sugar and 1/2 tspn of powdered cinnamon, nutmeg and salt)
- 2 tbsp brown sugar
- 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
- 2 tbsp tomato ketchup
- 2 slices of white bread, soaked in milk
- 4 eggs
- 500 ml low fat milk
- salt and black pepper
- 3 bay leaves
- Pre-heat oven
- Heat up olive oil in a pan and saute garlic and onion
- Brown the beef. Add some water to help with the browning (about 10 minutes).
- In a separate bowl, soak the white bread with milk and set aside.
- In another bowl. combine curry powder, turmeric, salt, black pepper, jam, lemon juice, ingredients as the substitue for chutney, sugar, ketchup and the soaked bread . Mix until combined.
- Add the sauce in to the browned beef
- Simmer for about 30 minutes, making sure to mix it regularly.
- After which,transfer the cooked meat with the sauce to an oven-safe baking dish.
- In another bowl, combine milk, eggs and seasoning.
- Then pour the egg mixture over the meat and add bay leaves.
- In the pre-heated oven, bake for about 35 to 40 minutes till the egg has set
- Serve with yellow rice. Top with raisins.
- Use of raisins for the rice is optional. In the absence of chutney, we have used the base ingredients of making a chutney from scratch as a substitute. As this was our first time making this dish, we did not have a point of reference of how this dish was going to taste, but in our opinion, it was absolutely supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
- Worth a repeat! Great for parties!
By the way, do you know that supercalifragilisticexpialidocious can also be said backwards? And that’s suoicodilaipxecitsiligarfilacrepus. OK, I can’t even pronounce that and apparently Mary did say it backwards in a stage musical that opened in London (2004) and Broadway (2006). Source: Infoplease. And I only knew about this because I was trying to google for the right spelling for supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.
I have been curious as to what the type of a Singaporean cuisine Gen would make. This makes me super excited! Come with me and head over to Gen’s blog to find out what she has made for Monthly Mystery Munchies #12.
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Monthly Mystery Munchies features every first Friday of the month in collaboration with Gen, Author of Eat, Play, Clove. Next month will be Gen’s turn to choose a theme and it is looking like we have a few themes line-up for the next few months. Exciting times, exciting recipes to dish out. Until then! Here’s to more #MMM to come.
