Passport & Plate - Sour Sorghum Meal with Bean Leaf Stew and Chicken
Botswana | Wednesday, March 12, 2014 | 3 photos
Ingredients
Makes for 2.
Sour Sorghum Meal:
Sorghum meal
Sour milk
Bean Leaf Stew:
Dried bean leaves
Carrots (chopped)
Onions (diced)
Tomatoes (diced)
Green/Yellow/Red Peppers (diced)
Packet soup - Beef and Tomato flavour
Salt
Cooking oil
Fried Chicken:
Mayonnaise
Black Pepper
Crushed Chillies spice
Salt
Cooking oil
How to prepare this recipeSour Sorghum Meal:
- Bring 500ml of water to the boil in a pot that is great for cooking rice and maize meal.
- Make a paste of 1 cup powdered sorghum meal and 1 cup of water.
- Add 2 pinches of salt to the water once it comes to the boil.
- At low heat, stir in the paste to the boiling water, preferably with a whisk so that it doesn't become lumpy.
- Stir in 350ml of sour milk or cream if preferred.
- Sprinkle over a cup of powdered sorghum meal at 2 minute intervals to give the sorghum meal some structure. To make it more rigid.
- Increase the heat and leave to cook for 30 minutes, occasionally stirring in the sorghum meal until ready.
Bean Leaf Stew:
- Chop and dice the carrot, peppers, tomato and onion into a pan and throw into 400ml of water together with the dried bean leaves.
- Add 3 tablespoons of cooking oil and leave ingredients to boil until water is dried up.
- Add an extra tablespoon of oil and stir for 10 minutes at low heat and then it is ready.
Fried Chicken:
- Boil 4 pieces of chicken in 250ml - 350ml of water (depending on the size of the chicken pieces) and 2 pinches of salt for 20minutes or until they are ready (not bleeding).
- Once the water has been used up, reduce the heat and add 3 tablespoons of cooking oil, a pinch of salt and a packet of your crushed chillies and black pepper and place a tablespoon of mayonnaise over each piece of chicken and leave for 5 minutes to marinade over low heat.
- Increase the heat by 2 notches and fry the chicken for 5 to 10 minutes until browned or as desired.
The story behind this recipeFrom as long back as I could possibly remember, every Christmas my grandmother would cook the best kind of traditional meal she could. I’m a genetically skinny person so it had always been her aim to fatten me up. Of course we didn’t like sorghum meal or maize meal at the time. It was Christmas and we wanted to eat pasta and rice like every other household. But growing up and having pasta and rice as my everyday food I have grown to appreciate the traditional meals; at quite an inconvenient time nonetheless since my grandmother has gotten quite old and can’t exactly work like she used to.
Seeing that my grandmother is quite old, two years ago I made it my mission to learn a couple of recipes I know I would treasure and have my future grandkids greatly enjoy should it ever occur that my grandmother is not around anymore. My mother isn’t much of a cook which is why I believe these recipes had to skip her generation.
So I learnt how to make sour sorghum meal (bogobe ba madila) with bean leaf stew (morogo wa dinawa) and added a few touches to the chicken that I learnt from my former neigbour. My grandmother just usually cooks the chicken in water and salt.
The recipe isn't exotic or exciting but I enjoy making it, and more importantly eating it. It always takes me back to the days when I was a young girl and there were less troubles in this world.
