Happy Heritage Day South Africa! This is a great way to show our traditional South African flavours off in a bite sized party snack. They’re easy to make, beautiful on presentation and conveniently, you can make them ahead of time and freeze them until you want to bake them. I recommend making the whole batch and taking them out as you need them for parties or get-togethers.

Here’s what goes in:

Olive oil for frying
1 onion, finely chopped
1 teaspoon of garlic, crushed
1kg of minced beef
1 quarter cup of Worcestershire sauce
2 tablespoons of chutney
1 cup of apple, grated
2 teaspoons of mild curry powder
1 teaspoon of ground coriander
1 teaspoon of turmeric
Half a teaspoon of ground ginger
Half a teaspoon of dried mixed herbs
Half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
Half a teaspoon of dried, or freshly chopped, chilli
2 bay leaves
1 teaspoon of salt
1 cup of water
1 box of Phyllo pastry (500g)
1 quarter cup of melted butter, for brushing the pastry

How to do it:

In a heavy-based pot, fry the onion and garlic in the olive oil until the onion is soft and appears slightly transparent. Add the mince, seasoning, chilli and sauces to the pot and continue to fry. Add the grated apple and one cup of water to the pot and leave to simmer for about half an hour.
In the meantime, soak the bread in the white wine vinegar and the remaining half cup of water. Gently mash it with a fork.
Once the mince is ready, remove it from the heat and gently mix the mashed bread into the meat. This will lighten the texture and your filling is now ready to make Bobotie triangles. If you don’t need that many, you can freeze the mince for another time or make a smaller Bobotie for a weeknight supper.

To prepare your pastry casings, make sure that your roll of Phyllo pastry is defrosted and that you have melted the butter in a small bowl and have a basting brush ready. Open the roll of Phyllo and divide the layers in half. In the end, you should have two large sheets of around 3 layers each. Using a sharp knife, cut rectangles measuring around 8 x 18cm. (You should get about 12 rectangles out of one sheet). Brush each rectangle with a bit of melted butter – this prevents it drying out and cracking, and also helps with the sealing process when you roll up the pastry.
Place a spoonful of mince on the top left side of the rectangle. Fold the top right-hand corner downwards over the mince, encasing it so that you have created a little filled triangle. Fold that over once more and then bring the remaining
bottom right flap up over the triangle again, using a bit more butter if you need it to seal more tightly. You should now have a tight triangular parcel that looks a bit like a samosa. Keep making them until you’re ready to bake them or until
your pastry runs out. Brush them with a little butter to finish and bake them at 180* for about 20 minutes, turning them over half way through the cooking process to make sure that the pasty on both sides is crisping up and taking on a
golden brown colour. (Freeze whatever you don’t want to cook). Serve them with chutney or chilli sauce.