How to prepare Zambia's traditional staple food called Nshima 🇿🇲
Nshima: The Heart of Zambian Meals
Nshima, locally known as Ubwali, is a staple in Zambia.The essential element of traditional Zambian cuisine is nshima, a dough made with maize flour. It can be made using maize meal, which is the most common, or with cassava, millet, and/or sorghum meal. The flour, very fine, is stirred with boiled water for a long time until forming a thick dough.
Nshima can be consumed slightly sweet with milk in the form of a porridge for breakfast. In Zambian culture, only nshima constitutes a full meal.
All other foods consumed between two meals are considered either snacks or substitutes but are not considered a meal. If you encounter a Zambian and ask him if he ate, he will answer “no” if he hasn’t had nshima that day yet, even if he ate a big plate of vegetables or peanuts.
Nshima with Tomato Gravy and Okra
Nshima is a fluffy, sticky cornmeal that is eaten warm, usually with a sauce, vegetables, and protein poured over it. Pictured here is Nshima with a red tomato gravy and okra. You can make a basic tomato sauce, but instead of adding Italian spices like basil, add chilli spice.
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Here’s how to prepare Nshima:- In a clear pot, add one cup of maize/mealie meal and a cup of cold water to make a paste.
- Pour 2 1/2 cups of boiling water to the paste and mix well.
- Bring the mixture to a boil for at least 10 minutes.
- Then, slowly start to add remaining 3 cups of mealie meal into the pot, while stirring the mixture carefully until completely combined, about 15 extra minutes.
- Once a stiff consistency is achieved and you're able to form the nshima into a shape, it's ready.
Ifisashi: A Vegetarian Delight
Ifisashi is a traditional vegetarian dish from Zambia that is prepared with spinach and peanuts. Beside nshima, ifisashi is often accompanied by cereals such as millet, sorghum, rice, cassava or yam. Vegetables are the greatest curiosity of Zambian cuisine. If it is easy to recognize spinach, tomatoes, onions, sweet potatoes, okra, pumpkins, peanuts, or cassava, other plant species are more unusual, like pumpkin or sweet potato leaves.Ifisashi could almost have a second name: “nothing gets lost, everything should be consumed”. This is a dish that you can cook with any vegetable you find but also and especially with their foliage. I really liked ifisashi and especially the crunchy peanuts in the middle of the vegetables.
Ingredients:
- Onion
- Tomatoes
- Peanuts
- Spinach
- Water
Instructions:
- Sauté onion for a few minutes over medium heat.
- Add tomatoes and peanuts.
- After a few minutes, add all the vegetables and the water.
- Cook for 10 minutes over high heat.
- Lower to medium / low and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring regularly until liquid is reduced.
Zambian Fish Curry with Nshima and Cabbage
Zambia is blessed with a large body of water country-wide and as a result, fish is readily available and easy to find. It’s a great protein source in Zambian households with many of us preparing it by smoking, boiling, frying, and/or drying the different types of fish available. For this particular dish, I added a twist to a local boiled fish recipe by making it a fish curry. I consider this a twist as Zambian food is not heavy on the spices - many prefer it cooked in its natural flavours.Fish Curry with Nshima and Cabbage
Ingredients:
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For the fish curry and cabbage:
- 2 Large tilapia or bream, gutted and cleaned
- 2 tsp Curry powder
- 1 tsp Your favourite mixed herb blend
- 2 Fresh chilies
- 1 tsp Black pepper
- 2 Tomatoes, grated
- 2 tbsp Tomato paste
- 1 Onion
- Salt, to taste
- 4 Garlic cloves, crushed
- 2 Bunches of Chinese cabbage
For the Nshima:
- 4 cups Maize meal/mealie meal (any brand is fine)
- Cold water
- Boiling hot water
Directions:
- In a clean pot, add the salt and curry. Put the fish, meat side down, on top of the curry and salt. Add more curry on top of the fish and pour enough water into the pot until it covers the fish. Boil it on high for 10 minutes.
- In a separate pan, fry onion and garlic until fragrant. Add tomatoes and tomato paste and mix well. Add the herbs and fresh chillies and continue to cook the mixture together, over medium heat. Once mixture thickens pour over the boiled fish and simmer it on low heat for 10 minutes.
- Wash and cut the Chinese cabbage into small pieces. In a clean pot, fry the chopped onion in oil. Once cooked, add Chinese cabbage and salt to taste. Cook for 5 minutes and remove from heat and keep warm.
- In a clear pot, add one cup of maize/mealie meal and a cup of cold water to make a paste. Pour 2 1/2 cups of boiling water to the paste and mix well. Bring the mixture to a boil for at least 10 minutes. Then, slowly start to add remaining 3 cups of mealie meal into the pot, while stirring the mixture carefully until completely combined, about 15 extra minutes. Once a stiff consistency is achieved and you're able to form the nshima into a shape, it's ready.
- Serve the fish with plenty of curry sauce, a side of cabbage, and a generous helping of nshima for a complete meal.
Zambian Chapati
This Zambian Chapati from celtnet org, was supposed to be a traditional recipe, introduced by the Indian traders and settlers many years ago. The Zambian Chapati is different from the ones we make, at least based on my knowledge of doing different Indian flatbreads.
Ingredients:
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- Flour
- Baking soda
- Salt
- Onion
- Water
- Cooking oil
Instructions:
- Wash and peel the onions, dice them small.
- In a mortar, pound the onion until it is partly a paste then scrape into a bowl.
- In a wide bowl, sift the flour, baking soda, and salt together, then add the pounded onion.
- Mix everything together and then slowly add water and knead to a stiff dough.
- Continue kneading well till the dough is soft and well kneaded.
- Cover with a cloth and rest for half an hour.
- When ready to cook the chapatis, heat a tawa, grease with cooking oil, and simmer.
- Divide the dough into small orange sized balls. Dust well and using a rolling pin, roll out as discs.
- When the frying pan is hot, place these discs on the griddle and cook.
Other Unique Zambian Dishes
Zambian cuisine offers a variety of unique and flavorful dishes:
- Mealie Bread: Cornbread from Zambia is especially delicious because it’s made with fresh corn kernels instead of cornmeal. “Mealie” is another name for corn in Zambia, and this mealie bread is very moist, and tastes delicious dipped in stew. The spicy chilies taste great with the sweet kernels.
- Crocodile Patties: In Zambia, crocodile is a common meat option in restaurants and tastes delicious ground up and formed into burgers. Crocodile meat is very low in fat, and the taste has been compared to chicken and crab.
- Wild Boar with Peanut Sauce: This hearty, filling dish is made with wild boar meat, pepper, onion, tomatoes, peanut butter and oil. Since boar meat can be a very intense flavor, the sweet peanut sauce balances it out nicely.
- Corned Beef Cakes: There are usually yams or sweet potatoes in the cake, and it’s spiced with cayenne pepper.
- Sorghum Soup: It’s simple but very comforting, made with just sorghum, ground nuts, water and salt. Sorghum is a hearty grain so it’s satisfying in a soup.
- Cassava Pancakes: Cassava-also known as yucca-is a root vegetable and when shredded up, makes for a delicious pancake batter. It can be eaten with syrup for breakfast, or topped with your favorite greens for a savory pancake.
