Authentic Zimbabwean dinner

Sadza with spring cabbage, beef stew and bbq chicken stew

For Zimbabweans, our staple food is known as Sadza or Isitshwala, which is made from maize meal and water. It is thick in consistency and quite tasteless on its own. We typically serve it with vegetables of all kinds (I will post more, provided I find the ingredients I need), meat, fish and sometimes even soured milk or insects like flying ants (ishwa) or a special type of caterpillar (madora or amaximbi). Last week, my friends and I had a sleepover just before the end of term as we won't be seeing each other for a month or so. The only Zimbabwean friend present suggested that I make sadza for everyone since she can't make it herself and hasn't had it in a while. This was around 11pm on a Thursday night! We gathered all the required ingredients and got down to cooking. To be honest, my sadza is not as good as my mum's and it's still a work in progress, but I was so happy with the outcome, considering I hadn't made sadza since last year before I left for university around September time. Here's how I make sadza.

Ingredients and utensils:

maize meal (the Iwisa brand is really good)

water

large flat wooden spoon

pot with lid

kettle

Method:

1. Fill up the kettle with water and boil it.

2. While the kettle is on, measure 1 mug of maize meal and pour into the pot. Add one mug of cold water and stir. If it's rather thick, add a little bit more cold water.

3. Switch on your stove and put the heat on medium-high

4. Once water has boiled, place the pot onto the stove and immediately start pouring the boiling water into the pot while simultaneously stirring with the other hand. Check the time here as it's extremely important to stick to the time limits.

5. Keep stirring for a good few moments until bubbles start forming. Keep stirring until the bubbles start popping faster and place the lid onto your pot. Leave it for 6-10 minutes max.

6. Add a little bit of maize meal (about 1/3 of a mug) into the mixture and stir in quickly. Be careful not to let the porridgey bits fly out the pot and burn you. Sometimes it's inevitable, however. Replace the lid and leave it for a minute or so

7. Add more maize meal and stir until the powder is invisible and there are no lumps. Leave it for another minute

8. If the bubbling has slowed down, immediately add a bit more maize meal, stirring it all in as you go and ensuring there are no lumps. You should feel it getting thicker. 

9. Add a little bit more maize meal until the bubbles have stopped. Take care not to put too much though, as it usually thickens the longer it stays on the stove. Now keep mixing it thoroughly with one hand holding the pot handle, and the other doing the stirring. You may feel pain in your biceps, but that's obviously due to the stirring.

10. If satisfied with consistency and thickness, lower the heat now and leave it for about 5 minutes. 

11. Put water into a bowl and dip a curved wooden spoon into it, then dish out. Dip the spoon in water each time you want to dish out the sadza to avoiding it getting stuck to the spoon.

12. Serve with whatever you want to as suggested above. Enjoy!

NOTE: I am NOT yet an expert at cooking Sadza, therefore you might want to have someone who knows how to cook it present if you're attempting it for the first time.

 - Sadza is tricky as it's all about the timing, but practice makes perfect!