My Ugandan food recipes

HOW TO MAKE STEAMED MATOOKE.

A/N: Author's note Hey guys I'm glad to be sharing a recipe for one of my best foods,
Matooke a type of green bananas that's eaten when cooked unlike some that have to be ripened to be edible.
It is grown in many of parts of Uganda but mostly Western, Central and some parts of Eastern Uganda. It is a staple food for Baganda and these are mainy in Central Uganda

Raw matooke

Requirements:
1. Raw matooke
2.Fresh banana leaves (endagala)
3.Soft banana fibres (Ebyaayi) usually soaked in water for a minute or two depending on how stiff they are and kept dump

4. Penducle (ekikolokomba)

5. Petioles (emizingoonyo)

6.A litre of water

7.Saucepan (entamu)

8. Basket (ekibo) optional.

PROCEDURE
1. Place two large banana fibres in a basket making a cross sign

2.Place a banana leaf folded in half on top of the fibres. Make sure to remove the petiole and remain with the midrib, it makes folding easy.

4.Peel the raw matooke and place it in the basket. The amount depends on the number of people you're cooking for or other accompaniments you're going to cook.

5.Cut a banana leaf or two depending on how big they're into small pieces of about 10inches. These are called (Obuwuuba) and they help to keep the steam inside while cooking and can be used to cover the ready matooke when put on a table or wherever one is serving from, also used to serve the matooke though most people especially in urban areas use forks to serve.

6.Fold the pieces horizontally at the midribs with the leaf blades meeting and place on top of the maatooke 2-3 pieces each side and tack properly and cover the matooke completely.

7.Bend the main banana leaf at midrib and overlap the two sides one on top of the other and fasten the banana fibre from both sides and secure in the middle.

8.Tack the remaining two sides neatly making sure all sides are secured and no matooke will come out. Untie the already fastened fibre ends and bring together the two that had remained. Tear a small piece of any of the fibre but it should remain attached, used to tie all the fibres together and cut the ends .

9. To a clean saucepan add a litre or more of water depending on the size.

10.Cut a banana penducle horizontally and cut the pieces in half vertically. Add them to a saucepan with the water. Add petioles after and place the matooke on top and cover with about 6 banana leaves, place two at a time. Ensure all sides are neatly tacked so that a lot of steam doesn't escape.

11.Put another saucepan on top (optional) and place on a hot charcoal or over cooking stones with firewood depending on your resources. Cook for about 45mins and check if you need to add water.

12. After about an hour the matooke is ready to be mashed.
Pour cold water in a bowl. This is used to cool your hands when removing the steaming hot banana leaves and also when mashing the matooke. Before you start mashing make sure the water had all drained, if not so drain it in case your mashing from the saucepan where it cooked to prevent it feom getting soggy. Alternatively you can mash from a basket with esaniiko/cooked banana leaves in it.

13.After mashing place the matooke in a different banana leave and cover with obuwuuba as before. Add water to the saucepan if necessary add the shredded banana leaf where the matooke was mashed from. This prevents our matooke from getting soaked when it starts cooking again. Cover and cook for about 30mins. After 30mins our matooke is ready to serve.

In the banana leaves next to the yellow goodness is Luwoombo but that's for another day

PS:Matooke is best served with g.nut paste, beef stew, Chicken stew, fish, bean stew and many more.
Usually people add cassava , sweet potatoes, rice and others to the menu.
And all images aren't mine, got them from Pinterest. Hopefully I will be using mine soon. And any covers are welcome😊😊

Thank you for reading and I hope this recipe will be of help to you. For those who might not be able to try it out from wherever you're, I hope it made you curious about Uganda in case you didn't know about it. Maybe you will visit Uganda someday and get to eat matooke
Bye for now, will be back with a chicken stew recipe and I hope I will be as precise as possible.

Mwelaba/bye

Hersnackness😘😘