Corn Pancakes and Bobotie

On Saturday we'd planned to make waffles, but that went out the window when the power went out at 8:30 a.m.

With the (electric) waffle maker ruled out, I was especially grateful to have a gas stove. We made a big fat stack of corn pancakes instead.

The cornmeal adds a lovely texture and is a nice change from the basic formula.

They're great with sweet or savory toppings. Blueberry syrup was a hit for everyone.

To wait out the outage, BF and I went to the beach while new roomie hit an art exhibit. What a tough life.

The power came back at 5:30 p.m., just an hour before nightfall. Lucky us, we had light to cook dinner by.

As the freezer had been off for 9 hours, we weren't sure how long our frozen meat would keep. We made a South African meatloaf to use up some ground beef which I was afraid might have defrosted.

This is bobotie (pronounced buh-booty, as close as I can come).

Ground beef is mixed with the usual suspects of breadcrumbs, eggs, onions and garlic... and blown away by curry powder, raisins and apricot jam. Topped with an egg-milk custard and flaked almonds which bake on top of and into the meatloaf for its last 20 minutes. Altogether it takes quite a while to make, but it's so worth it.

Quick note: in an electric oven that topping would be a lovely golden-brown, but in our gas oven where heat comes only from the bottom, we had it a bit different. It's still phenomenal.

Told you so!

Corn Pancakes

courtesy Food Network

serves 4-6
total time: 30 minutes

ingredients:

1/2 cup flour
1 cup cornmeal
3 tbsp sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/4 cups milk
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 eggs
vanilla

directions:

Whisk flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt.

In a different bowl, whisk milk, butter, eggs and a little vanilla.

Whisk the wet mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. Ladle 1/4 cupfuls onto a hot buttered skillet and cook until bubbly. Flip and cook until golden on the bottom.

Bobotie

taken from The World of Spice cookbook
serves 8
total time: 90 minutes

This recipe serves 8. We halve it. Yesterday it served three hungry obronis after a long, hot day.

ingredients:

for the meatloaf

1 tbsp sunflower or groundnut (peanut) oil
2 onions, finely sliced
1 clove garlic, chopped
1kg (about 2lbs) minced beef
2 tbsp curry powder
1 tsp garam masala
3/4 cup breadcrumbs (the book suggests doing this fresh from 3 slices of dry bread. we never do.)
25ml (1 1/2 tbsp) malt vinegar
2 eggs, beaten
15g raisins (if one M&M weighs one gram, that's probably about 20 or 30 raisins... how many tsp is that?!)
3 tbsp apricot jam
Large pinch of salt
Butter, for greasing (or a nonstick cooking spray)

for the topping

2 eggs
300ml (1 1/4 cups) milk
20 blanched almonds, sliced (you can get these pre-sliced in the baking section)

directions:

Preheat the oven to 180C/350F.

Heat the oil in a frying pan and stir-fry the onions and garlic for about 3 minutes or until the onion starts to soften. Add the beef. Cook for about 3 minutes until it changes color. Stir in the curry power and garam masala.

Add the breadcrumbs, vinegar, beaten eggs, raisins, apricot jam and salt. Simmer for 30 minutes.

Lightly grease a loaf pan about 8cm in depth, spoon in the mixture and bake in the preheated oven for 30 minutes.

To make the topping, beat the eggs and milk together, and pour over the top of the meatloaf, dotting with the almonds. Bake for another 20 minutes until the top puffs up and turns golden. (Or... not. As earlier mentioned.)

Serve in slices, while still hot.