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Referred to as South Africa’s unofficial national dish, Bobotie is a shockingly tasty pie-like concoction of mince, fruit, nuts, and a custard topping. Nigella even puts bloody jam in it!

Now, if Nigella and Joey Tribbiani both think that custard, jam and meat is a winning combination, I guess I shouldn’t knock it ’til I’ve tried it. But my version – courtesy of Lannice Snyman (with a tweak or two) – features mere dried apricots and apples.

And it goes a little something like this:

Ingredients

vegetable oil

2 onions, finely chopped

600g minced lamb

2 garlic cloves, crushed or finely chopped

10g hot curry powder

2 slices bread, crumbed

1 lemon, juiced and zested

3 eggs

300ml milk

40g flaked almonds

1 granny smith, peeled, cored and finely chopped

60g dried apricots, chopped

5 bay leaves

Serves 4

Method

Before we get started, it might be helpful to note that there are 3 stages here. There’s the onion, garlic, meat and curry powder stage; there’s the milk, egg, breadcrumbs, fruit and nut stage, and then there is the custard stage. So, don’t worry about getting everything ready beforehand as you can do it in between stages.

Step 1: Turn on your oven to 160 c. Grease your tray with butter or oil. Butter is probably better but whatever you have to hand works.

Step 2: Fry your chopped onions on a low heat until they are golden brown but not burnt. Add your meat, and prod with wooden spoon until it’s all sealed. Lannice says you can use beef or lamb. I used lamb and after tasting how well it worked with the other ingredients, I can’t imagine that beef would work as well. So, use lamb.

Step 3: Add your garlic and curry powder to the meat. Cook all this up on a low heat for about 30 minutes. Remember, mince tends to be pretty low grade fare, so the longer the better.

A note on the spices used here: I used Rajah hot curry powder, which contains coriander, turmeric, mustard, bengal gram, cumin, chilli, fenugreek, pepper, garlic, salt, fennel, poppy seeds and curry leaf, apparently. Lannice provides a recipe for a roasted masala to go with this recipe which contains coriander seeds, turmeric, cumin, chilli, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom, pepper, and ginger. Not much overlap. So, I think it’s probably up to you to experiment a bit to get it to your taste – just make sure you get some salt and cumin in there for flavour, and pepper and chilli for a bit of warmth.

Step 4: Combine your breadcrumbs, fruit, nuts, lemon juice and zest, 50mls of your milk and 1 of your eggs (the rest of your milk and eggs are for the custard). Fold this into your mince and make sure it’s all mixed up well. This mixture goes into your tray and gets patted down flat with a big spoon.

Step 5: Roll up your bay leaves and bury them in the bobotie mixture. I can’t figure out why Lannice wants them rolled up but it made them a bit easier to pick out afterwards so I’m keeping this step in.

Afterwards, cover your tray with foil and pop it in the oven for 30 mins.

Step 6: Take out your tray, remove your foil and turn up the oven to 200 c in preparation for the next step.

Step 7: Mix together your 2 remaining eggs with your remaining milk and add a good pinch of salt to make a sort of savoury custard, and pour this over the top of your bobotie. Put it back in the oven at 200 c and cook for another 15-25 minutes until it’s getting omlete-like and a bit burnt on top.

Remove from oven and voila! You (should) have yourself a ridiculously tasty bobotie. I served mine with lightly spiced rice but it’s hefty enough to eat on its own. Enjoy!

For my first post ever, I decided to keep it very simple. Calling this a salad feels a little like I’m cheating because, seriously, let’s just take stock here: there are 5 ingredients (4 if you don’t count the olive oil, not pictured here). But, we’ve been eating it pretty much every Saturday morning for the last couple of months, usually with scrambled eggs and toast. So I must be onto something. Very simple, very tasty, and very satisfying.

Ingredients

7 -10 small vine tomatoes

80g stilton

2 small, ripe avocados

10 basil leaves

Olive oil

Method

Step 1: cut your tomatoes in half and arrange at the bottom of your salad bowl. Today, I had small-ish vine tomatoes, but I quite often use mini Roma tomatoes. The important point is that they need to pack a punch. So, as long as they are flavoursome, it doesn’t matter exactly which type you use.

Step 2: slice open your avocados. Using a teaspoon, remove the pits, scoop out the flesh and place on top of the tomatoes. I use a teaspoon because (a) it’s easier to wedge under the avocado pit than a tablespoon and (b) it makes for smaller scoops of avocado which are easier to eat and more in proportion with the tomatoes I use.

Step 3: tear up your basil leaves, roughly, and scatter over the top of your salad. Sometimes I add a handful or two of spinach leaves to this salad to beef it up a bit. This works well if you’re having it on its own for a light lunch or dinner.

Step 4: crumble your cheese over the top, taking care to break it up into relatively small chunks. The key to this salad is to use a good, strong cheese — either a white sheep’s cheese or a blue cheese, like the stilton I used here. The sharpness of the cheese chimes well with the sweet tang of the tomatoes and the soft blandness of the avocado but it’s strong stuff you’re dealing with and you don’t want it to be overpowering – so, try not to overdo it.

Step 5: drizzle with olive oil if you so desire. Do NOT be tempted to mix it all up. I did this exactly once (I can’t really explain why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time). While it still tasted great, it looked pretty vile. So, you have been warned.

So, there you have it: quick and easy avocado salad. Serve with hot buttered toast and scrambled eggs for a delicious brunch, or eat on its own with some spinach thrown in if you feel like a light lunch or dinner.