bobotie, noun
- Forms:
- Show more Also baboeti, baboetie, babooti, babootie, babote, babotee, babotie, bobootie, bobotee, boebooti.
- Origin:
- Afrikaans, South African Dutch, MalayShow more Afrikaans, earlier South African Dutch boebooti, boboti, probably adaptation of Malay bumbu curry spices. N. Mansvelt’s Proeve van een Kaapsch-Hollandsch Idioticon (1884) traces the origins of this word to Malay boemboe ‘prepared curry powder’, while both the Patriot Woordeboek (1902) and S.J. du Toit’s Afrikaanse Taalskat (1908) acknowledge the word’s eastern origins.
a. A traditional dish (probably of Malay origin), made of lightly curried minced meat baked with a savoury custard topping. Also attributive.
1870 ‘A Lady’ in Cape Monthly Mag. I. Oct. 224‘Babootie’ and ‘frickadel’ and ‘potato-pie’ are great improvements upon the minced meats of England.
1991 Argus 29 Aug. 19The recipes brought in by the Dutch pioneers had been vastly improved by the Malay influence — who introduced locals to boboties, bredies and biryanis, fruit and vegetable chutneys and atjars.
b. With distinguishing epithets designating various types of bobotie: fish bobotie, lamb bobotie, pilchard bobotie, sultana bobotie.
1964 L.G. Green Old Men Say 121Fish babotie, a baked fish pudding, or fish bredie, would not be out of place on an all-Cape menu.
1984 L. Sampson in Style July 117Sunday lunch is a feast, snoek kedgeree, sultana bobotie, lamb tripe and trotters, roast suckling pig, yellow rice.
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