Top 4 ways to make your Ugali

This is Kenya and as you all well know Ugali, generally in the form of Maize meal, is a staple starch in most people’s homes. The usual way to make ugali is by boiling maize flour and stirring it around until a smooth,hard paste has formed. Some people add salt while others feel this tampers with the flavour and like to keep it simple.

As Kenya sails into the middle of the second decade of the century, people are beginning to look for new ways to sex up their ugali and make it more palatable to the discerning foodie.

As a result, we have decided to help our readers in this quest to make ugali more modern, by listing four things you can do to it to give it more oomph.

1. Coconut Ugali

Add desiccated coconut to your ugali mixture. Fresh is best but if you cannot get it fresh, then store bought variety works fine too. The coconut flakes add crunch to your ugali and a nutty aroma will fill your kitchen as you cook. A tablespoon or two for each cup of water should do. Coconut milk or cream will also give you great results. Alternatively if the taste of coconut doesn’t rock your boat, try substituting it for some Millet flower in stead, this ups your nutrition content, while giving it a fun texture in the process.

2. Creamy Ugali

This one is for all you lovers of soft ugali. Basically what you want to do is to cook the ugali in milk instead of water. You can do all milk, or half milk half water, depending on how creamy you want it. To this you add a large pinch of salt, some cheese (optional) and a large knob of butter when it’s beginning to dry up. if you want to go out on a limb, add in a teaspoon of Tumeric powder at the beginning and the end result will be a delightful bright yellow meal.

3. Tangalizi Ugali

This is a mixture of green grams (or pojo as it is popularly known at the coast), kunde, cassava, salt and coconut. The flour is used sparingly in this version. Tanglalizi ugali is made by mixing the green grams, flour, black eyed peas before adding cassava and grated coconut, then mix them all with water and coconut milk. After that, pound the mixture for a few minutes for an even consistency and then cook as you would do your usual ugali. Add butter to ease the stirring and bring out the flavors of the ingredients.

4. Ugali Croquettes

This one is for when you wake up in the morning and there’s still a large slab of the stuff sitting in your fridge. Basically there are two ways to do this: the first is simply whisk up an egg with some coriander into the leftover ugali, coat it in breadcrumbs and shallow fry it. If you want to make this even more interesting put a lump of cheese or a spoonful of tomato sauce into the centre of the mixture and then proceed as above. This way it will become a filled ugali croquette! Yummy!