Reflection on Chef's Challenge

This experience was so great.  Though I had nightmares for several days before that everything would be ruined and was so nervous while cooking, it came out really well and I was able to share some of my favorite dishes from East Africa.  It is very hard to cook a meal from scratch.  It took my friend and I two hours to prepare and cook.  It reminded me of how we learned about the transition to pre-made meals such as Hamburger Helper when more women began working outside of the home.  I feel as if I understand their need for faster, easier meals because I am a busy college student and don’t have the time, much less the money to prepare a meal like this everyday.  Though I enjoyed the process of cooking, it makes me wonder about the day when I have a family and if I will have time to make home cooked meals everyday.  I also learned making meals requires planning and budgeting money and time.  I had to plan what I was going to make and what ingredients I needed and the order I was going to cook the dishes.  It’s the little things like the need to plan and prepare even before you prepare the meal that I wasn’t aware of until I took on this challenge. 

            I want to keep preparing homemade meals for myself and for my family someday.  I enjoy cooking and enjoy the innovative process of coming up with new dishes.  It is rewarding to have something to show for after an extensive process of cooking.  Though, I have become more realistic at the time and money it requires to produce a meal everyday.  I want to do more exploring of food and find ways to cook healthy, yummy meals that don’t require exorbitant amounts of money. 

            My favorite part of this meal was gathering my friends together and sharing something special with them.  I was able to serve them.  We were also able to come together and have fun and share stories.  I was able to tell them about East Africa and they perhaps got a better idea of what East Africa meant to me.  This reminded me of Michael Pollan’s book, In Defense of Food, when he asserts that there is more to eating than just replenishing one’s body with nutrients; that eating is a relational activity.  Those shared moments with friends and food are special and need to continue.  Sharing food and conversation add a dimension to the act of eating that I feel is so often lost in our culture today.  I hope to pursue this relational aspect of eating as I continue my journey as an explorer of food.  

 (Above, left):  Mandazi dough

(Above, right):  My first attempt at mandazi, they tasted alright but were very burnt.

The dinner spread.  In the front center is the cabbage dish, front left is ugali, back is goat stew and perfectly, golden mandazi (finally they came out well, but no thanks to me as my friend made the dough and fried them).

Enjoying an East African meal together.

The Story Behind Chef's Challenge

When I read one of the challenges for Chef’s Challenge was to make a meal for friends or family from scratch, I knew instantly what I was going to cook.  I decided I was going to make a meal of some of my favorite dishes from East Africa.  Right away, I knew I wanted to make a cabbage dish because cabbage is a staple in East Africa and I had been craving some cabbage as of late anyways.  I decided I would have to make a dish called ugali because we had it for every lunch and dinner and though I swore I would never eat it again, I wanted my friends to try ugali.  Being in East Africa instilled a sense of adventure in me therefore I decided I would attempt to cook goat, if I could find it in the Cities.  Finally, our favorite treat in East Africa was mandazi, which is the East African version of a doughnut and I decided that would be my final dish. 

            The first part of the adventure was tracking down the ingredients, mainly the goat and the corn flour needed for ugali.  A friend and I went down to Central Ave and scoured the ethnic grocery stores.  We found Maseca corn flour (a corn flour used in Latin and South America) in an East African grocery store and after a lengthy conversation with a very nice man from Ethiopia, decided that though it wasn’t the type of flour we used in East Africa, that it would work.  Finding goat was trickier.  We went to several different stores with no luck before walking into a store that looked more like a convenience store than grocery store.  It was here that we found goat!  I was hoping for a goat roast, however all they had was chopped up goat.  As I was paying for my goat, the man asked me how I was going to cook the goat and I told him that I had absolutely no idea, that figuring that out was my next challenge. 

            The rest of the groceries were much easier to obtain as I got all of them at Cub.  I spent a total of $40.39 on this dinner alone.  I spent $14 on canola oil, corn flour, and goat on Central Ave and $26.39 at Cub for produce and baking ingredients.  I didn’t have any flour, sugar, baking powder, eggs, or butter though so if I had those staples previous to this dinner party, my costs would have been less.

            The night of the dinner came and I was nervous.  I had tried making mandazi two days before because I was nervous they wouldn’t turn out.  It was a good thing I attempted them before the night of the dinner because I burned them all that first night before realizing the stove was set too high and the oil was too hot.   I started preparing the food two hours before I was going to serve dinner and it was barely enough time.  My friend was gracious enough to offer to help and without that help, I would have been even more frazzled.  By some miracle, all four dishes turned out well, the goat was cooked and tasted good, the dinner was served by 6:00 and my friends enjoyed the meal!

            I didn’t use recipes for the dishes other than for the mandazi; every other dish I had a good idea of how to cook, though I did look at several recipes for Kenyan beef stew, which I modified into goat stew.  I also didn’t measure any of my ingredients for the dishes other than the mandazi.

Cabbage dish:

Oil

½ of large red onion diced

2 tomatoes

1 head of green cabbage

Sauté the diced onions.  Add the cut tomatoes and heat until they are pureed.  Cut the cabbage into slivers and add cabbage to pot and stir.  Cabbage should not be crisp when served.

Ugali:

Water

Corn flour

Bring water to a boil.  Add the corn flour and stir with a wooden spoon until the mixture is thick (it helps if you have someone with larger muscles than mine to stir).  Make sure the mixture is not watery, if so then add more corn flour.  Cover and leave on low heat for 15 – 20 minutes.  Texture should be thick and almost spongey, roll into ball with hands and dip in stew or eat with cabbage.

Goat Stew:

Oil

1 red onion

4 potatoes

3 carrots

2 tomatoes

Tomato paste or sauce

Water

Goat

Garlic

Cilantro

Sauté the cut onion.  Add goat meat.  Add water and cut tomatoes.  Add potatoes and carrots.  Add 1 can of tomato sauce.  Add more water if needed.  Spice with diced garlic and cilantro.  Bring to boil, turn heat down and let stew simmer. 

Mandazi:

1 egg, beaten

½ cup sugar

½ cup milk

2 Tbsp butter, melted

2 cups white flour

2 tsp. baking powder

Bring all ingredients to room temperature before mixing them together. Mix all the ingredients together, adding more flour if necessary. The dough should be soft, but not sticky. Roll the dough on a lightly floured board until it is about 1/4 inch think. Cut into triangles and fry in hot oil. Fry until both sides are golden brown. Remove mandazi from oil and drain on paper towels or newspaper. Mandazi are best served warm.