Meal decision fatigue is real. Here’s how to spice up home-cooked dinners
Kenya is famous for its long-distance runners, and many a Kenyan athlete will attribute their strength and stamina to the health-giving effects of another treasured staple, ugali with sukuma wiki.
Sukuma wiki is made with kales cooked with onions and spices to make a tasty relish for ugali (maize meal).
In Nigeria, West Africa, you’ll certainly find jollof rice — the spicy, one-pot dish comprising of rice, tomatoes, onions and pepper — a popular delicacy at every festive gathering. The dish is often served with fried plantains and pounded yams.
If you are a visitor in the streets of Durban, you’re likely to be served bunny chow, a South African fast food dish that is made of a hollowed-out loaf of white bread filled with a blistering-hot curry.
Just landed in Maputo, Mozambique? Sizzling, spicy prawns and seafood could be your first choice of food. But your hosts would be happier if you order the hugely popular grilled chicken piri piri – the succulent feast of chicken cooked with lime, pepper, garlic, coconut milk and piri piri sauce.
This delicacy is traditionally served with matapa, a dish of cassava leaves cooked in a peanut sauce.
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All in all, Africa is a continent rich with a variety of dishes prepared from locally available ingredients such as grains, vegetables, and roots that form the basis of many foods.
But, let us face it, we all get bored of preparing the same old dishes for our family and friends at home.
And yes, it doesn’t get any better heading out to our favorite hotel or restaurant in our neighborhoods for a family dinner only to be served with something that is unprofessionally cooked.
So, how about spicing things up by hosting a team of chefs, yes, inviting professionals in your home kitchen and rewarding the team that whips up the tastiest African dish?
This could be a cool move given that the hospitality industry has been struggling and workers have been finding it hard to make ends meet due to the fall out caused by the coronavirus.
Picture this: it is Saturday afternoon and you are having a hearty chat with your family sipping sobolo (hibiscus tea popular in Ghana) as you say to your ‘host’ chefs, “you have five minutes left on the clock.”
A frantic cook rushes to the oven to see if the sizzling prawns are done while another starts to ready the spicy broth made of okra and flavored with chicken.
Another pair of chefs put their finishing touches to their delicious relish made of pumpkin leaves, tomatoes and groundnut powder while your family, which is the designated panel of judges, looks on with amusement on what will come out of their home kitchen for tonight’s dinner.
Then of course, there’s the best part: When the judges get to taste these tasty creations of African foods, leading up to the final moment of truth: Who will make the cut?
We can’t tell you how many times we’ve seen these mouthwatering scenes unfold on Hoot, Cook, Go – a brand-new Pan-African lifestyle show on DStv HONEY channel.
Hoot, Cook, Go is a cooking show where three teams have just an hour to treat one another to a hearty meal with the winning chefs taking home a grand prize.
Every Thursday at 16:00 WAT, 17:00 CAT, 18:00 EAT on HONEY (DStv channel 173) watch as Africa’s vibrant food culture, particular palates and often curious cultures come together in one cooking show.
