TANZANIA: THE FOOD

Welp. Here we are. This is what quarantine looks like. I’ve been working from home for over a week now. The kids and I have been navigating what e-Learning is and trying to make sure they are doing their work too. The cats are confused why we’re all here all the time now. My husband worried himself into a migraine the other day. The stores are out of everything essential; I haven’t seen hand sanitizer for a while. As a family, we just normally practice social distancing anyway, so it’s like a typical weekend for us. But finding the ingredients for this meal was a little more challenging than usual. I grabbed the last bunch of collard greens, and the only carrots were a bag of shredded carrots. Because of America’s weird panic of buying everything out and racism against other culture’s food, the Hispanic and Asian sections were practically fully stocked, so that helped.

I need to do this one over again, except I ran out of flour. And actually, this is half all-purpose/half sorghum flour.

So, to distract me today, I’m making food from Tanzania. I started with Zanzibar Chapati. I added 2c of all-purpose flour in a bowl with about a ½ c of water and started mixing it with my hands. I had to add another ½ c of water, then I worked the dough until it was able to form into a ball. Then I formed a small well into the ball and added a Tbsp of oil and a ½ tsp of salt and kneaded it into the dough well. Once it was soft, I rolled it out and then made it into a rope, coiling it around and tucking in the end. I brushed the top of it with oil and let it rest for 20 minutes. I tried rolling it out again, but it fell apart, so I just redid the coil and flattened it with my hand. I added a bit of coconut oil into the skillet and fried it on one side until it started to turn brown, turned it and fried the other side. However, my heat was up too high, and I don’t typically cook with coconut oil. So, the outsides of it burnt a bit and the inside wasn’t done enough. Mer ner. The good thing was that my double fan/hood my husband built works really well at getting the smoke out of the kitchen. The small bite I did take wasn’t bad, though.

And odd texture, to be sure. But the flavor wasn't bad.

The next dish I made was Ugali na Maharage ya nazi. I started with the first part: Ugali. I heated up water but not until it boiled, then I stirred in about a cup of corn flour and stirred with a wooden spoon until it was like porridge. When it started to bubble, I covered the pot and let it cook for about 3-4 minutes. Then I added in the second cup of flour. It should’ve had the consistency of play dough at this point, but it just never got to that point. For me, it was like thick grits. I tried to spread it out as much as I could along the bottom of the pan, covered it, and let it cook for another 3-4 minutes. After this, I turned it so it could cook on the other side for another 3-4 minutes, repeating this two more times. To serve it, I was supposed to form it into a ball and place it on a dish, but that wasn’t really happening. However, it didn’t taste bad. I was kind of skeptical, but once I mixed it with the other dishes, it was pretty good.

This was pretty good. This made a good vegetarian dish, but I think you could probably also add in meat if you want.

The second part of this is the Maharage. I started with browning some diced onions. Just as they started to brown, I added in a drained can of diced tomatoes and some of the shredded carrots and let them cook for a couple minutes. After that, I added in the kidney beans to the mix with just a touch of salt and stirred well. At the very end, I added in about half a can of coconut milk and stirred it into the mix, reducing my heat to low and letting it simmer for 3-4 minutes. I had to keep stirring to keep it from sticking. This was actually pretty good, and I can see that it went well with the ugali. I was quite surprised with this, although it probably used another touch of salt.

Who doesn't love collard greens? It's so healthy and so simple!

To go with this, I also made Sukuma Wiki. I sauteed some more onions in a large pot until they were translucent. Then I added in some collard greens that I de-stemmed and chopped up. I added it in batches and sauteed until it was wilted. Then I added in about ⅔ of a can of diced tomatoes, some water, and some salt and pepper to taste. I brought it all to a boil and then let it simmer for 20-30 minutes. I served all of this with a side of rice because if my son refuses everything else, I know he’ll eat rice. The recipe also mentioned serving it with couscous or ugali, and I would’ve tried to make couscous, but I couldn’t find it. I liked this, but we’re also fans of collard greens. I did add just a little bit of minced garlic to the mix, but it just helped make it even better.

This proves that vegetarian meals don't have to taste like cardboard.

I really learned a lot with this one. And I even restarted learning Swahili on Duolingo. It’s an interesting language. I wish Duolingo would add more African languages to their list. Like why are they adding in fake languages when they only have one African language represented? And there are so many to choose from, too: what about Amharic, Yoruba, Oromo, Hausa, Igbo, Zulu, or Shona for starters? Anyway, I do have to give a big thanks to my friend Kim for talking to me about her favorite Tanzanian foods from her Peace Corps days and trips made afterward. It was excellent!

Up next: Thailand