Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Cooking Forays!

So I have made chapati (flat bread), groundnut (or a variety of peanut) stew and matooke (mashed plantains) in the past two days. For chapati I went into my director's kitchen to cook with her cousin. I have to admit that there was something inherently soothing in the act of making bread. Although the nice thing about a flatbread is that there's no waiting around for it to rise. Just mix it up, roll in out (well this step takes a bit since you do it twice), then throw it on a pan to cook. And oh goodness does chapati ever taste good. The warm, oily, bready wonderfulness that's chapati. Definitely my favourite food in Kenya although groundnut stew scores a close second.

I'm going to share the chapati recipe but really it's just a list of ingredients because Kenyans don't measure anything when they cook. It's more of a throw in the pot and hope it comes out kinda attitude. Nor do they seem to share recipes on cards to put in boxes like some of us are wont to do. And, most unfortunately, the church or school cookbook is absolutely non-existent.

Chapati

Flour
Salt
Egg (I've been told these can be optional
Oil
Water

Mix it all together until it resembles dough.

Roll it out into a square. (I think techniques might differ here). After we rolled, we cut the dough into long, thin strips that we rolled into a pinwheel shape that eventually made a little ball of dough. Then we rolled out the little balls of dough into round, pancake shapes.

Now you're ready to cook your chapati. Put oil on the pan, throw on the chapati. Flip it once or twice, possibly adding a bit more oil for that top side. The goal is a nice, golden chapati. You'll know if there's too little oil because it'll be white rather than golden.

And voila! chapati!

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