Welcome to the only soya bean bobotie from scratch recipe. Much acclaimed for its deep flavor and perfect texture, it is definitely a South African vegetarian dish guaranteed to impress. This recipe was developed and perfected by Cecelia, a talented cook. First I am going to introduce her, and then we are going to walk through the recipe.

You will find step-by-step instructions and the recipe in recipe format below the narrative.

Cecilia’s Kitchen.

About Cecilia.

Cecilia lives somewhere in the forests of Wilderness. While she is not vegetarian, her cooking ethos is one of a consciousness that food is ritualistic fuel.

Inspired by her family’s festive approach to cooking, Cecilia is quite fond of throwing dinner parties – wine, good food, and conversation makes life a little sweeter.

Albeit being quite elusive, we managed to get her to submit some of her tantalising recipes to Rebel’s Kitchen. At the heart of it all, Cecilia is a rebel by nature.

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Day 1

Cecilia discovered a beautiful organic shop in Sedgefield, and knowing that she had to prepare a meal that nourishes the soul, she decided to buy a box of organic goods. This box contained mung beans for sprouting. Soya beans for mincing (500g). Carrots. Leeks. Garlic.

Once she got home, Cecilia decided to begin preparing her soya bean, from scratch, bobotie. From experience, she knows that the process takes roughly 48 hours in total, so starting early is of the essence.

The very first thing Cecilia does to start her vegetarian bobotie is to prepare a pot of vegetable stock. This stock is then used for cooking the soya beans and infusing them with flavor.

After she thoroughly cleansed the stock vegetables and diced them, Cecilia heated up Ouma’s old pressure cooker (“Ouma se pot”) with some coconut oil. She then added the stock vegetables and let them fry for a minute or five. Adding water to cover and twisting on the lid, Cecilia proceeded to listen to some Tom Jones, poured herself a glass of wine and lite up, whilst waiting for the vegetable stock to cook under pressure.

I found this technique of pressure cooking the stock very clever! A stitch in time saves nine as they say. 

Once satisfied with the consistency of the first batch of stock, she then decided to carefully drain off some of the stock.

Cecilia then took this one part of the stock and brought it to boil in Ouma se pot along with the dried soya beans, whilst the other half of the stock was comfortably simmering with the original stock vegetables. Once Ouma se pot was boiling Cecilia proceeded to add more water, sufficient enough to cover the soya beans.

At this point, Cecilia decided to take a stroll in the garden and chose the most fragrant herbs. For this bobotie, she added winter savoury, oregano, rosemary, parsley, and an entire clove of garlic. These aromas started putting a fragrant spell on the kitchen.

Once the fragrant stock came to a complete boil, and Ouma se pot did its steam-train sound—Cecilia ensured that the stove was off and retired to bed and let the food rest for a while too.

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Day 2

Once she returned after about 6 hours, Cecilia added more stock to the beans and let the beans properly roast until all the liquid was gone. Cecelia says that one has to remember that the soya bean is mostly flavourless, so flavouring the beans whilst dehydrating is a tricky balance, but crucial to the success of the recipe.

The traditional bobotie recipe calls for white bread to be soaked in milk for an hour or so. Cecilia used some artisan white bread, some full cream milk, and added in turmeric, fresh bay leaves and chives from her garden.

She then proceeded to cook the base flavouring of her bobotie using one onion, spring onion, red pepper, and mushrooms, frying these together with her favourite curry spices (allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, black onion seed, curry powder,) and once this was nicely fried up, she added some stock to it and let it rest for the big show.

Once she saw the beans were turning brown in the oven, she removed the beans carefully and transferred them into a container that can handle her immersion blender, as she needs to turn the beans into a pulp.

After blitzing and being happy with the smooth texture of her pulp (it slightly resembles hummus)—she greases her pan thoroughly and proceeds to smear the pulp into the pan. When this is done, she liberally oils the top with her favorite cooking oil,  salts the top generously, and puts it back in the oven to bake. This takes quite a while, as one needs not to be nervous that the pulp turns too brown. According to Cecelia creating an even and deep browning in the soya bean paste is key to giving this bobotie its signature texture and flavor.

Cecelia also opens the oven and separates the pulp every 20 minutes or so—and slowly, it starts to resemble mince! Another hour or so of baking the mince, and being happy with the texture,  Cecilia decides it is almost ready for the last stretch.

She strains the milk from the bread, reserves it, and adds the bread to the mince in the pan. She also adds the curried mixture she cooked earlier in the evening and a handful of seedless raisins. She then proceeds to bake this in the oven, with an extra cup of stock for another 15 minutes whilst she prepares the egg custard that is characteristic of any bobotie.

The egg custard is made from the excess milk that has been drained from the bread, and four eggs. She also removes the bay leaves from the milk, as she will use this for garnishing later on. The milk and egg are quickly whisked at low speed with her immersion blender. She mentions that one can add a tad of baking powder for extra volume, but she decides not to do it with this bobotie. She then transfers the mince into a big enough ovenproof dish, adds a dash more stock and salt, and pours the egg custard on top. She garnishes this with the bay leaves from earlier and also adds a raisin or two more (the raisin really soaks up flavour, she explains)

What a feast.

Here is the recipe in recipe format. Below are also step by step images to assist you in making this soya bean bobotie.

The Only Soya Bean Bobotie - From Scratch

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Serves: 8 Prep Time: 48 hours

Ingredients

• Oil for frying
• 1 bunch of carrots
• 1 bunch of leeks
• 1-2 litres of water for stock (or enough to cover the vegetables)
• 1 Tom Jones song (for the cook)
• 1 bottle of wine (for the cook)
• 1 clove of garlic
• 500g soybeans
• 1 sprig of winter savoury
• 1 small handful of oregano
• 1 sprig of rosemary
• 1 handful of parsley
• 6 slices artisan white bread
• 3 cups full cream milk
• 1 pinch of turmeric
• 3-4 fresh bay leaves
• 1 sprig of chives
• 1 onion
• 3 spring onions
• 1 red pepper
• 250 grams mushrooms
• 2 teaspoons allspice
• 1 pinch of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon,
• 2 crushed cardamom seeds
• 1 teaspoon dried chilli
• 1 teaspoon black onion seed
• 3 teaspoons curry powder
• Salt for seasoning
• 1 handful of seedless raisins
• 4 free range eggs

Instructions

Stage 1: Preparing the Soya Beans

Begin by preparing the dried soybeans. This step consists of making a simple vegetable stock, and pressure cooking the soybeans in the stock.

1. 1 day in advance, assemble stock vegetables, water, cooking oil, and dried soybeans.
2. Wash and chop the stock vegetables, and gently fry them in a large pressure cooker for a few minutes. Add enough water to cover, twist on the lid and pressure cook until the pressure cooker whistles.
3. Drain off half of the stock. Transfer the remaining half with the vegetables into a separate pot, and pour the strained stock back into the pressure cooker.
4. Add the dried soybeans to the pressure cooker, adding enough water to cover.
5. Add winter savoury, oregano, rosemary, parsley, and one head of peeled garlic, and replace the lid of the pressure cooker.
6. Keep the pressure cooker on the heat until the whistle blows. At this point turn off the heat and leave the pot to stand overnight without opening the lid.

Stage 2: Dehydrating and Roasting the Soya Beans + Prepping

This stage consists of dehydrating the soya beans twice in the oven, browning them to turn them into a perfect mince, and prepping the two other elements of the bobotie, which are the vegetable component and the custard cream that goes on top.

Dehydrate the soya beans:

1. Remove from pressure cooker and spread cooked soya beans into a large ovenproof dish. Add more stock to cover, and place in the oven, setting the oven temperature to high (220 degrees C / 428 degrees F).
2. Roast for approximately 1 hour. Turn off the heat and allow the beans to rest for 3-5 hours.
3. Add more stock to cover, and turn the oven back on to a high heat of 220 degrees C / 428 degrees F. Roast until all liquid has evaporated and the beans have started to brown.

Create the soya bean mince:

1. Remove from the oven and transfer the beans into either a jug blender or into a bowl suitable for an immersion blender. Blitz the beans until they form a smooth paste.
2. Smooth into a large ovenproof dish, brush liberally with oil, and sprinkle generously with salt.
3. Place the dish back into the oven setting the temperature to medium-high.
4. Bake for approximately 1 hour, breaking up the paste with a fork every 20 minutes.

Prep the other two elements:

During the time that you are making the soya bean mince, you can prep the other two elements of the bobotie. This consists of soaking the bread in milk and frying the vegetables.

1. Place the white bread into a dish along with the milk, adding in the turmeric, fresh bay leaves, and chives. Set aside to soak
2. In a pan on the stove, fry the onion, spring onion, red pepper, and mushrooms, together with allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon, cardamom, black onion seed, and curry powder. Once fried, add in a little stock (roughly 1/2 a cup) and set aside.

Stage 3: Assemble the bobotie & bake

Once the blitzed soya beans have browned into a mince, it is time to draw the dish together by adding the soaked bread and fried vegetables to the mince, creating the egg custard, and baking it all together for a further 20-30 minutes.

1. Remove the bread from the milk and add it into the mince pan along with the fried curried vegetables, a handful of seedless raisins, and a further 1 cup of stock. While this simmers in the oven for 15 minutes, you can make the egg custard.
2. To make the egg custard, remove the bay leaves from the milk and set them aside for garnishing. Add the 4 eggs to the milk and whisk at a low speed until frothy.
3. Now transfer the beans into a clean baking dish, adding a little more stock if it appears dry, and some additional salt for seasoning.
4. Pour the egg custard over the top, place the reserved bay leaves onto the egg custard for garnishing, and bake for a further 20-30 minutes on medium-high heat. The bobotie is now ready to serve.
5. Serve with creamed banana, desiccated coconut, and Mrs. Balls’ chutney (optional).

 

The Only Soya Bean Bobotie From Scratch was last modified: July 24th, 2020 by Daniela Klein

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Notes

This bobotie makes 8 servings. Because of the time and steps required to make the soya bean bobotie from scratch, it is worthwhile to make a large quantity, even if you require fewer servings for the meal that it is prepared for. Bobotie, like curry, is one of the dishes that is even better eaten the day after, and will keep well in the refrigerator.

Step-by-step Photos + Instructions

If you are the visual kind, follow these steps with photos for making the bobotie. If you want the plain text recipe, find it at the bottom of the page.

Stage 1: Preparing the Soya Beans

Begin by preparing the dried soybeans. This step consists of making a simple vegetable stock, and pressure cooking the soybeans in the stock.

Begin by making the stock.

1. 1-2 days in advance, assemble stock vegetables, water, cooking oil, and dried soybeans.
2. Wash and chop the stock vegetables, and gently fry them in a large pressure cooker for a few minutes. Add enough water to cover, twist on the lid and pressure cook until the pressure cooker whistles.

3. Drain off half of the stock. Transfer the remaining half with the vegetables into a separate pot, and pour the strained stock back into the pressure cooker.

4. Add the dried soybeans to the pressure cooker, adding enough water to cover.

5. Add winter savoury, oregano, rosemary, parsley one head of peeled garlic, and replace the lid of the pressure cooker.

6. Keep the pressure cooker on the heat until the whistle blows. At this point turn off the heat and leave the pot to stand overnight without opening the lid.