This past Sunday, January 12th, marked Zanzibar’s Revolution Day when in 1964 the Sultan was overthrown following the independence from Britain (1963).
Zanzibar (small speck at the end of the arrow) is an island (comprised of small islands) located just off the coast of Tanzania (highlighted in green) in eastern Africa. It’s considered a semi-autonomous region of Tanzania as it united with Tanzania after the revolution.
The cuisine of Zanzibar is a result of the many influences from other cultures and its location surrounded by sea and year round warm climate. The food is known to be fresh (cassava, coconut, mango, jackfruit, oranges), flavorful (cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, turmeric), and commonly includes fruit from the sea (octopus and squid).
The melting pot of flavors and spices come from Middle Eastern and Asian trading, Indian immigrants, along with British and Portuguese presence (colonization). The island itself is known as “Spice Islands”.
My search for authentic cuisine yielded flatbreads as common bakes as well as rice and curries containing seafood as common dishes. The dishes I selected are due to ingredients and flavors not commonly found in my kitchen or food. While chapati is a common flat bread eaten in eastern Africa including Zanzibar, I was more interested in making the Mkate Wa Ufuta (Zanzibar Sesame Bread) as it contains coconut milk and sesame seeds.
The Mkate Wa Ufuta is a yeasted flatbread containing the basic bread ingredients of all-purpose flour, yeast, and salt. The additional ingredients are coconut milk, egg, oil for frying, and sesame seeds for the topping. The recipe comes from Leite’s Culinaria website (recipe linked) adapted from Felicia Campbell -The Food of Oman – Andrews McMeel, 2015.
Let’s start with the ingredient list:
3 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour, 2 1/4 tsp of yesat, 1 1/2 tsp of salt, 1 cup + 2 tbsp of full-fat canned coconut milk, 1 large egg, 1/4 cup neutral oil, 3-4 tbsp sesame seeds
Let’s bake!
To the bowl of a stand mixer, add 3 cups of flour, salt, and yeast. Whisk the three ingredients. Then add 1/2 cup of flour, egg, and coconut milk. Stir with a wooden spoon. Once a shaggy mass has formed, begin kneading with the dough hook. Kneaded for about 10 minutes. Then, place in a warm area (over warm oven) to rise for about an hour.
Dough has risen but no need to double in size… it will be dense…
Flattened each piece out with a rolling pin about the size of a tortilla. Rub neutral oil over one side and sprinkle sesame seeds on top making sure to pat them slightly into the dough. Place a flatbread in a hot skillet. While the oiled/sesame side is in the skillet, rub more oil and sesame seeds with additional salt on the other side until ready to flip. Each side should take about 2 minutes.
Mkate Wa Ufuta thoughts: Flat like a Mexican tortilla yet slightly thicker than naan; however, it really isn’t either one of these. The Zanzibar bread is dense, chewy, somewhat crispy from the fry, and nutty from the sesame seeds. It scoops like a utensil and soaks up liquids from soups and curries. I happened to find some really tasty sesame seed mix that has a Dulse, Nori, and Kombu seaweed combination along with sea salt. I think this sesame seed mixture really added to the flavor of the bread. The coconut milk and egg added richness while the yeast added a little sponginess. The bread was memorable and will go great in place of naan in Middle Eastern cuisine served with hummus. It was easy to make and is on my keeper list of breads to repeat.
The rest of the meal consisted of Zanzibar Calamari Curry and Coconut Rice (my new fav!!)
Since seafood and coconut are in abundance in Zanzibar, I wanted to try my hand in using both of these ingredients. I’ve eaten coconut rice before, but for some reason, this recipe was really good and memorable to me. I have cooked with squid before (it’s been a while) and wanted another reason to cook with it again. Novice experience in using these ingredients led me to these recipes. They are also both authentic to Zanzibar and contain flavors and vegetables (even fruit) specific to the culture. Since we LOVE our veggies, I was drawn to the many fresh elements of the calamari dish. Recipes are attached to the following titles. Thanks to International Cuisine for the Zanzibar Calamari Curry and Food.com for the Coconut Rice from Zanzibar.
Zanzibar Calamari Curry: I made some slight modifications to the recipe. I added about 1 tsp of ground turmeric (common to Zanzibar). I used 1/2 tsp of ground cinnamon and 1/8 tsp of ground cloves because I didn’t have the whole versions. Since we love veggies, I didn’t measure them, but ended up with A LOT more veggies than I think the recipe required, so I doubled all of the savory spices as they were cooking AND I added a cup+ water for more liquid.
All veggies and mango are chopped, frozen okra is in a bowl waiting, and all spices are together in a small bowl…
(Left to right… mango, eggplant, minced garlic above the orange peppers, red onion, carrots, and tomatoes)
Moving on to the easy peasy Coconut Rice…
What I would do differently next time:
- For the bread, dust salt on both sides of the sesame dough when covering with oil and sprinkling with sesame seeds.
- For the curry, since I had more vegetables than the original recipe appeared to have, I would double the sweet spices (cloves and cinnamon) and add 1/2 – 1 cup MORE coconut milk and maybe more water depending on the consistency.
- For the curry, be sure to taste and add more salt at the end cooking.
Zanzibar Calamari Curry thoughts: We tend to enjoy curry, so this was a pleasant dish to eat with lots of flavor. On the first night of eating the dish, there wasn’t any one flavor that overwhelmed the dish. In fact, the squid was very mild (and cooked perfectly, not chewy as squid can be) and you could only taste it when eating a bite of it. You might think the mango would be too sweet, but since I used a green mango (basically unripened), it only added another level of depth. The okra was detectable but not overpowering either and not slimy (as okra can be). All of the spices including the cinnamon and cloves melded really well together, not one overtaking another.
Let’s talk leftovers… once the dish had time to mesh even more (overnight in the fridge), the curry seemed to dominate the flavors but still good. Overall, just a really nice dish. It went well with the rice and a little more sauce with my future changes would only add to the meal… need more sauce to soak into the rice and the bread.
Coconut Rice from Zanzibar thoughts: Yep!! Hands down my favorite rice! I really didn’t expect to enjoy it so much since it only had coconut milk and salt. I was eating the rice by itself it was so tasty. I wouldn’t change a thing to the recipe. Even with the coconut milk, the rice can be versatile eaten with sugar and more milk just as my dad used to do with leftover rice… and my husband, too. The same rice can be the base of any dish or certainly eaten by itself.
Final thoughts: I’ve now made several different breads and dishes from different countries in Africa. It’s fascinating to me how different they have all been. We’ve had such simple, natural flavors from landlocked Botswana to rich spices from Zanzibar. I could never forget the hearty warm spices from Ethiopia. We’ve had vegan dishes, hard-core red meat, and seafood. So far, all of the breads have been flatbread, but they’ve tasted so differently… yeasted Zanzibar, no yeast Botswana, and naturally occurring yeast Ethiopia. Wow! What diversity!! I can’t wait to see what else this diverse continent has to offer, no doubt there’s so much more to discover.
Thanks for reading! I appreciate any likes, follows, or comments. More to come soon, stay tuned.