Need a Recipe for VIBIBI and MKATE WA SINIYA... and Wyazi Wa

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Need a Recipe for VIBIBI and MKATE WA SINIYA... and Wyazi Wa
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Minamoo

Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 1231

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 2:58 pm Post subject: Manda and vibibi - Swahili yeasted breads

marigold wrote:

I found an English version of mkate wa sinia https://www.mwambao.com/sinia.htm and it sounds perfect for coeliacs, but I don't know how to translate the thick/thin coconut milk instructions? Coconuts I buy here only have thin watery milk in them and I'd rather use ready prepped coconut milk if I can. Any suggestions for an inauthentic version that I could try, Mina?

ahh but coconut milk is not the same as coconut water which is the thin stuff in the coconut. What we do back home when we can't be bothered to do it properly is take the flesh out, cut it as small as you can, chuck it in a blender with 1 cup water, blend, push through a sieve, put the bits back in the blender with another cup of water, repeat once more. Combine the second and third cups of milk together to make thin coconut milk and keep the first one separate as thick coconut milk. You start the food off with the thin coconut milk and when it's reduced dowm, add the thick milk.

Option 2: push loads of nails into a board in such a way as the pointy ends stick out and use the nail ends to scrape out the coconut flesh before processing in blender as above.

et voila. you have some thick and some thin coconut milk. Let me know how that recipe turns out. If it disasterifies I can give you my mum's.

Mum's vibibi recipe uses:

1 cup rice
1 cup coconut milk
1 egg
1tsp yeast.

Soak rice overnight (min. 12 hours). Mix all ingredients together and put in blender. Blend till smooth. Leave to rise. Put heavy frying pan on hob on v. low heat with a little ghee in. Put in a little mixture andleave till it rises. The frying pan MUST be tightly covered so that the vibibi sort of steam as thy cook. Turn onto cast iron griddle pan/tawa/chuma cha chapati on very low heat and cook till set and brown on both sides. Serve with coconut syrup.

Mum's manda (a kind of barawa (dad's tribe) bread that's similar to mkate wa mofa which is a swahili sour dough bread made with brown flour and millet flour and flavoured with some onions)

1 cup maize flour
1tsp salt
1tbsp sugar
1tsp yeast
1 3/4 cups water
2 cups flour

put maize flour in bowl, bring water to boil, pour over flour and stir to mix. Cover and leave till completely cool (overnight best, min 6 hours)Add plain flour, sugar and salt and mix thoroughly. do not add any more water or flour! Add yeast and leave to rise. Preheat oven to about 180C and put in a round heavy(ish) pan with a tight fitting lid and heat it up. When it's hot, put in 4 balls of the dough and do not press down. Cover pan tightly and put back into oven till cooked (skewer will come out clean) and it will look slightly brown on the edges. These freeze very well and can be reheated in oven, microwave or by steaming.

Last edited by Minamoo on Mon Nov 09, 09 3:06 pm; edited 1 time in total

Minamoo

Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 1231

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 3:05 pm Post subject:

There is a good recipe for mofa here as well as some other swa food recipes. Replace the "cron bread flour" with maize meal.

For a truly authentic taste, reserve some of your bread dough and use it to make a sour dough starter like you would for normal sour dough bread and feed with brown flour. Then use that as your starter in your next batch. It can have a rather "fermented" taste as well which is normal.

marigold

Joined: 02 Sep 2005
Posts: 12458
Location: West Sussex

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 3:38 pm Post subject:
Thanks Mina, that might be a bit beyond my weedy little blender's capabilities, but I'm compiling excuses to buy a Magimix...

earthyvirgo

Joined: 24 Aug 2007
Posts: 7972
Location: creating prints in the loft, Gerlan

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 3:46 pm Post subject:
Mina, Your cookery knowledge is phenomenal and really inspiring. Have you thought about writing a book? ... in your 'spare' time EV

Minamoo

Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 1231

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 5:03 pm Post subject:

earthyvirgo wrote:

Mina,

Your cookery knowledge is phenomenal and really inspiring.

Have you thought about writing a book? ... in your 'spare' time

Lol! I love the idea of "spare time"! I am honestly starting to think about whether it might be worth it for me to take a year out after I finish my PhD to do all the other things I really want to be doing but can't cos of the PhD guilt. I could continue to write and try to publish articles in academic journals so that people know of me by the time I get round to trying to get a post doc/lectureship. But it would mean that I could properly start our Msitu preserves business, write my swahili inspired wild food cookbook (with such things as little nettle and ground elder stem and goat's cheese pastries, to wild mushroom mtabaki (a kind of swahili pie involving layers of samosa pastry and filling which is then baked), swahili nettle and coconut curry, bread flavoured with garlic mustard seeds.....), have time to sell all the kenyan crafts, fabrics, handbags and jewellery that I brought with me, register the Nuru School as a charity in the UK (It's currently only registered in Kenya), have time to organise a proper volunteering scheme for people to go to Malindi and build the new nuru school..... Oh....so much stuff. So little time. Sigh.

jamanda
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 22 Oct 2006
Posts: 35056
Location: Devon

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 5:08 pm Post subject:
Mina, is it OK with I fiddle about with your post to put the recipes in the data base separately?

Minamoo

Joined: 05 Feb 2008
Posts: 1231

Posted: Mon Nov 09, 09 7:37 pm Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

Mina, is it OK with I fiddle about with your post to put the recipes in the data base separately?

Knock yourself out! It was the first time I put anything on there so wasn't 100% sure what to do.

Millymollymandy

Joined: 23 Sep 2005
Posts: 187
Location: Brittany, France

Posted: Tue Nov 10, 09 1:41 pm Post subject:
If you use canned coconut milk it has usually separated into the thin stuff and the really thick stuff so that ought to work out fine. Off to check out all these other recipes now.

James

Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 2866
Location: York

Posted: Wed Nov 11, 09 1:20 pm Post subject:

Jamanda wrote:

Our resident African cooking expert will along before long I'm sure.

Thats what I love about DS. There's a resident expert in stuff you never even thourght we'd have resident expert in. I couldn't even read the title....now, having read the thread, there's all sorts of new & exciting stuff to cook.

makadara wrote:

i was born, brought up, studied, worked and married in mombasa before seeking greener pasture elsewhere(a big mistake)! There is no place on this earth like the Kenyan coast....

Welcome to the site, makadara.
I know how you feel. I was brought up in a beautiful area of Britain. I moved away becuase there's not much work there. As the locals move away, so the houses have been bought up by wealthy people retiring to the area who raise the price of housing. Now I couldn't afford to live there even if I had a job.
Its my dream: to return home.

makadara

Joined: 07 Nov 2009
Posts: 3
Location: Toronto, Canada

Posted: Thu Nov 12, 09 12:31 am Post subject: Asante Saana ''thanks a lot" for all the responses.

Hi Guys, Thanks for the many responses and some very interesting suggestions like the one on coconut sauce to go with the rice pan-cake (vibibi). Many moons ago, I was participating in a KVDA work camp in Takaungu which is 30 km north of Mombasa just a little off the Mombasa/Malindi highway. It was an 'international camp' and on one of the weekends, all of us campers were invited to a Swahili wedding! Lo! Sweet 'taarab' music flowed along with some of the best Swahili dishes including mkate Siniya and potatoes cooked in rich coconut sauce! Oh... and that Swahili pilau using mutton! It was a full moon night. The mood was just right and the food was awesome. The ambiance was beyond description! It was almost early morning before we returned to the 'camp' laden with some left overs that we continued to enjoy the next day! The Coast has its own romance to offer to those who are ready to give themselves up to it!
PS: There is a difference between coconut water and coconut milk. Obtaining coconut milk needs a bit of elbow grease whereas a decent drill with a drill bit can be used to puncture a hole to gain access to the water.

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