Recipes

Ugali

Ugali is white maize meal cooked with water into a firm, smooth mass, and it is the staple of Kenya, Tanzania and much of East and Southern Africa. It is not a flavoured dish and does not try to be. Its role is to anchor and complete a plate, and everything else is arranged in relation to it. Making it is a physical skill rather than a recipe. The cook works flour into boiling water over heat, stirring continuously against real resistance, until the mass pulls away from the sides of the pot and holds its shape. The ability to make good ugali is a basic domestic competence in Kenyan households, and a poorly made one is noticed and remarked on. It is eaten by hand. A portion is broken off, pressed between the fingers into a scoop, and used to lift stew, greens or fish. Ugali alone is not a meal; it is the constant against which the rest of the plate is judged. The same preparation runs across the region under other names: nsima and nshima in Malawi and Zambia, sadza in Zimbabwe, posho in Uganda, pap in South Africa. Sorghum, millet and cassava flour are all used in place of maize in different areas, and in Kenya nyama choma with kachumbari is the pairing most associated with it.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hr 20 minMediumKenya

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

Matoke

Matoke is green cooking banana, and in Uganda it is close to being the national dish. The word names both the banana variety and the dish made from it, which tells you how central it is. These are not the bananas eaten raw. They are harvested green, when the flesh is firm and starchy rather than sweet, and they must be cooked. Treated this way they behave much more like a potato than a fruit, they take on the flavour of whatever they are cooked with, and they fill you up in a way that has made them a staple across Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda. The classic Ugandan preparation steams the peeled bananas, often wrapped in their own leaves, until soft, then mashes them. Served that way it is the base of a meal, eaten with groundnut sauce, beans or meat. It is also known as ebitookye in parts of Uganda and as matoke or mataba more broadly across the region. The version here is the stewed form rather than the steamed and mashed one, sliced bananas simmered with tomato, chilli and lemon into something closer to a vegetable stew, finished with coriander. Both are matoke, and which one is meant depends entirely on where you are. Peeling raw green banana stains the hands and the sap is sticky; oiled hands help.

EasyUganda

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

Tsaramaso Malagasy (White Bean and Tomato Stew)

Dried white beans cooked until tender, then finished with red onion and sliced tomatoes into a thick, soupy stew. It is Malagasy, and it is served everywhere on the island. It is laoka, which is the useful word here. In Malagasy eating, rice is the meal and laoka is whatever accompanies it, the thing that goes on top of, or beside, a large plate of rice. Tsaramaso is one of the most popular laoka in the country, and it is eaten as a matter of course rather than as an occasion dish. It is very often not vegetarian. Zebu meat, the humped cattle that are central to Malagasy life, makes it hen'omby sy tsaramaso, and pork makes it tsaramaso sy henakisoa. The shank is the cut the source recommends. This version is the plain one, which is also widely eaten. The technique in the recipe is worth noting: the beans are cooked separately in water, seasoned only at the end, and a cup of their cooking liquid is kept back. That liquid is what the finished stew is loosened with, and it carries starch and flavour that plain water would not. The source compares it to cassoulet, which is a reasonable shorthand, beans and meat cooked long and slow, though the seasoning is entirely different.

2 hr 15 minEasyMadagascar

Recipe by Blessing · Africook