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

KENYA: THE FOOD

So, it’s Labor Day weekend. What’s weird about Labor Day is that most countries celebrate Labor Day on May 1 based on an incident that happened in the US (the Haymarket Affair). However, the US (and Canada, I think) celebrates Labor Day on the first Monday in September after a labor march held in Canada around this time. And this year we’re cooking food from Kenya on our long weekend. 

My son, Jabari, waiting for the coconut mandazi to cool. Pretty sure he's just waiting for me to turn my back.

 

I started today’s cooking adventure with making coconut mandazi (sometimes called mahamri). Mandazi are like doughnuts, typically not made with coconut milk, but this is a variation recipe that calls for it. First I added 3 c of flour into my bowl, then a packet of yeast, 7 Tbsp of sugar, and 1 tsp of ground cardamom. I poured about ¾ c of coconut milk into the flour mixture a little at a time until it was soft. I found I had to add about another ½ c or so to get it to the right consistency. I kneaded it for 10-15 minutes, which doesn’t seem like a long time if I’m reading a good book, but feels like it’s at least three days if I’m kneading dough. Once it’s been kneaded enough, I divided it into two balls and let rise. It didn’t specifically say, but I let it sit for about a half hour.  When it was ready, I divided each ball in half again, rolled them into a ball and flattened them out to disks that were about a quarter inch thick. After this, I divided each disk into four sections and laid them on a floured surface to rest for another hour. After the second rest time, I heated up my oil and put in the pieces to fry. It’s important to turn them once they start to puff up and start to look brown; it doesn’t take very long. I have to tell you that these were fabulous! I think this will definitely be made again. The flavor was sweet but not too powerful. It was light and airy and taste great by themselves. But try them with a little chocolate syrup drizzled on top and they are out of this world! I might even try to fill these with chocolate pudding next. 

Surprisingly good, especially for spinach fans. This is Popeye approved. 

 

The second dish I made was a side dish called irio. I boiled some potatoes that I had peeled and cut into smaller pieces along with a can of corn, lima beans, spinach, and peas. When it was done, I mashed them altogether and added salt and pepper. The recipe called to mix in some fried onions as well, but I decided to just sprinkle those on top. I really liked this. The spinach was the predominant flavor, so if you don’t like spinach, then you might either want to keep it out or substitute another green. I liked it, and I think everyone else liked it, too.

Ugali is a staple in Kenya and probably several other countries in this area. It’s essentially yellow cornmeal mixed with boiling water and a little salt until it becomes the consistency of grits. However, may this be a lesson to me: I really thought I had cornmeal in the cabinet, and I didn’t check because I was so sure about it, but it turns out that I had everything BUT cornmeal. I had corn starch, corn flour, grits, barley, white flour, wheat flour, white rice, red rice, and oatmeal, but no cornmeal. So, needless to say, I had to skip this recipe at the last minute. Lesson learned.  

It was pretty good, even though "two more minutes" can make a huge difference.

And finally, the main course: nyama choma. I used stew beef so that it’s already cut into pieces. Although it doesn’t have to be marinated, some people choose to do it that way, which is what I did. After I thawed out my meat, I mixed it with a little bit of minced onions, ground ginger, minced garlic, salt and pepper, and some Worcestershire sauce (in lieu of lemon juice). After letting it sit for about an hour, we fired up the grill, put it on skewers, and grilled it until it was done. Ok, maybe it was a little too done, but it was still good nonetheless. 

Overall, this was really good. My husband and I are still coming up with variations on the mandazi. I'm thinking of filling it with chocolate ice cream now. 

 

I thought this meal turned out pretty good. Simple, yet flavorful. I’ve noticed that some areas of Africa use a lot of spices (like northern Africa), and other areas tend to stick with just salt and pepper. It seemed like most of the meals I looked through only used a handful of ingredients, which is great because food is getting more and more expensive. The price of eggs has almost tripled in the past decade, and the price of meat has almost doubled. Cereal and nuts are outrageous. It’s ridiculous. But I also thought of how resourceful Kenyans must be to be able to make tasty dishes out of the few ingredients they may have on hand. I have learned so much about Kenya over the past couple of weeks. I’m proud to have a president who is half-Kenyan. It’s a shame he’s vilified by some for his heritage because that’s not what we’re about. Unless you’re Native American, everyone here came from somewhere else. So, let’s be proud and celebrate where we came from. It’s what makes us interesting. It’s what makes us strong.

Up next: Kiribati

BOTSWANA: THE FOOD

Amidst picking my kids up from my parents from staying overnight, trying to battle crowds of morons to finish up my Christmas shopping to actually wrapping all these gifts, I did manage to find time to do a little cooking this weekend. And not just any cooking: food from Botswana.

At the end of the 2^nd episode in “No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency,” Mma Makutsi mentioned making seswaa. Seswaa is slow-cooked beef brisket. I did find beef brisket, which is a tough cut of meat just below the shoulder; however, it was a little more than I wanted to pay for. They had two: one was $16 and the other was $20. So, I went with a slightly cheaper cut on meat, a top round cut. I know it has a different taste and different fat content, but it was still really good (I retained some of the juices to keep it from drying out too much). The meat was slow-cooked for 2 ½ hours in a pot with very few ingredients: some chopped onions and black pepper. After that time, I took the meat out and pounded it down. I don’t have a pestle (I asked for one for Christmas, so maybe I should’ve waited a couple of days to make this meal), so I used a potato masher instead, and it did the job. I did add a little salt at the end – it reminded me of pot roast my mother used to make. It's not beautiful in a picture, but my stomach though it was. Perfect for a cold winter’s night.

I wish you could smell this picture, like you can in Harry Potter. It certainly made my kitchen smell good. 

I made what’s called ugali; basically it’s pouring cornmeal into boiling water. It was supposed to be the consistency of really thick mashed potatoes, but mine got really dry and crumbly. I did add 2 tablespoons of butter and a little garlic powder. I don’t know if the garlic powder is truly Botswanan, but it certainly was really good. Crumbles and all.

Crumbly ugali. 

The vegetable dish I made is called Botswana cabbage.  It starts out sautéing tomatoes and onions, then adding in some ginger, oregano, thyme, and I added some green chilies, and of course, cabbage. I added water and let it simmer. However, I really should’ve been checking on it a little better because the bottom got a little burnt when the water cooked off. And I think my recipe might have had a typo, because it called for a lot of oregano, much more than mixed well with the other spices. Overall, it had potential of being really tasty, if I hadn’t have messed it up.

Cabbage and tomatoes and all sorts of bits of (burnt) pieces.

Finally, this is one meal where I broke tradition and left the bread for last. Called magwinya, or fat cakes, it starts out as a dough of flour, sugar, yeast and salt and worked it until it was smooth and rests for a half hour. Afterwards, I made small balls of dough and fried it. The recipe said it was similar to Yorkshire puddings, but I thought it was closer to fried biscuits that you find in the southern US. (And if you think about it, there is definitely a link between the two areas; however, this particular one may be more of an influence from the British, seeing how I’m not sure how much grains were actually harvested and ground before their arrival; they tend to use more root vegetables and tubers. But it’s not like they didn’t have access to buying flour, I suppose. I will have to check on this though. Please, if you know, leave a comment and let me know the origin on magwinya and whether or not it is related to southern fried biscuits or not.) And of course, I thought I had vegetable oil but apparently I didn’t, so I had to use olive oil. But they turned out really well. I never followed up to see what they put on it, so I put butter and strawberry jam. Needless to say, there are no leftovers.

Because "fat cakes" were exactly what I need when we're in Christmas cookie season. 

We are at the peak of the Christmas season and the end of the year, which makes me reflect on what’s really important in my life. I think this meal somewhat represents life in general. There are core things that make up the bulk of the meal – that part that fills you up – which is the seswaa and ugali. Then there is the part of life that doesn’t turn out the way you planned, but you really strive to still make it the best it can be: the cabbage. And of course there are the sweet moments – the fat cakes with strawberry jam – that makes everything worth waiting for, the things that memories are made of, and reminds you there is still good in the world, often of few ingredients. And of course, it’s all best enjoyed with the ones you love. It seemed like such a fitting meal seeing how Kwanzaa starts this week. Happy holidays, everyone!

The final product; Or, a visual representation of my life. 

Up next: Brazil