A-Z food challenge: K is for Kenya

After eating so much rich food over the last few days, I really felt like something simple and earthy tasting. Reading through various recipes, I finally stumbled on Ugali from Kenya, a cornmeal mush that's often eaten with a meat or veg stew. Perfect.

Combined with Sukuma Wiki (some Kenyan greens) and Samaki wa Kukaanga (fried fish), it sounded like the perfect meal.

It was actually quite difficult to cook - I was a bit lazy with my prep and found that I didn't really cut my kale down to the right size nor could I get the ugali quite to the right consistency (and I also used yellow maize meal instead of white cornmeal since I had some in the cupboard). My Ugali turned out more like a mash but, ideally, it should be shaped into a sort of dough ball after cooking and then you tear a bit off with your hand, make an indentation with your thumb and then stick your cooked meat or veg into the indentation to eat.

Even the fish didn't turn out quite right - I probably didn't buy the right kind or have my oil hot enough, as I couldn't get the fish to brown enough when I fried it. Instead it ended up a bit overcooked and tougher than I would have liked.

I'll have to track down a Kenyan restaurant one day (or make the trek to Kenya itself) to sample the real deal for myself. But I'm pretty sure my dinner tonight didn't quite live up to what it should have tasted like.

We're actually away tomorrow to the Lakes District for my birthday so the food challenge will kick back in next Monday, with L for Lebanon and some meze dishes to tempt the tastebuds.