Mahamri and Mbaazi za Nazi

As tradition built it

Serves 4 to 6 · 1 hour 55 to 2 hours 25, plus soaking the peas overnight

Ingredients

• 500g plain flour
• 60g caster sugar
• 7g instant yeast
• 3g salt
• 10 Seeds from 10 green cardamom pods, ground (about 1 tsp)
• 250ml coconut milk, warmed to 35 degrees
• 1 egg (optional; plenty of coastal recipes have none)
• for deep frying Oil for deep frying
• 250g dried pigeon peas, soaked 8 hours (or 2 x 400g tins, drained)
• 400ml thin coconut milk (second press)
• 200ml thick coconut cream (first press)
• 1 small onion, finely diced
• 6g salt

Method

1. Mix the flour, sugar, yeast, salt and cardamom. Add the coconut milk and egg, and bring together. Knead 8 to 10 minutes until smooth and slightly tacky.
2. Prove covered at room temperature 1.5 to 2 hours, until doubled.
3. Divide into 4. Roll each piece into a disc about 5mm thick and 20cm across, then cut into quarters. Rest the triangles 15 minutes.
4. Fry at 175 degrees, 60 to 90 seconds a side, spooning hot oil over the top for the first 15 seconds to encourage the puff. Doneness cues: they inflate, the surface blisters, and they are pale gold rather than brown. Drain on a rack, not on paper.
5. For the mbaazi: simmer the soaked peas in unsalted water 50 to 70 minutes until tender but not collapsing. Drain.
6. Return the peas to the pan with the onion and the thin coconut milk. Simmer 15 minutes.
7. Add the thick coconut cream and the salt, and cook 5 minutes below a simmer, stirring, until the sauce is glossy and lightly thickened. Do not let it boil. Doneness cues: the sauce coats the peas and holds a line drawn through it; if you see oil separating and grainy white specks, it has gone too far.

Notes

Mahamri

Mbaazi za nazi

What a modern chef changes

Method

1. Press your own coconut, twice (rung 1). Blitz 400g fresh grated coconut with 500ml water at 60 degrees in the high-power blender for 60 seconds, then wring it through muslin: that is the first press. Return the solids, add another 400ml of hot water, blitz and wring again for the second. Simmer the peas in the second press, then take the pan off the heat, let it drop to about 80 degrees, and stir in the first press. Fresh coconut has a sweetness and a lactone-driven aroma that tinned milk loses in retorting, and holding the first press below a boil keeps the emulsion intact, which is the entire difference between glossy and broken.
2. Cardamom ground to order (rung 3). Grind the pods, sift out the husks, and add the powder at the final mix rather than to the dry ingredients. Cardamom is roughly 30 to 40 per cent 1,8-cineole and α-terpinyl acetate by volatile weight, both of which evaporate readily. Ground cardamom from a jar is a pale ghost of the pod, and in a dough this simple it is the whole flavour.
3. Cold overnight bulk (rung 4). After the initial 1.5-hour prove, refrigerate the dough at 4 degrees for 12 to 16 hours, then roll and cut it straight from the fridge and rest the triangles just 20 minutes before frying. Cold, slow fermentation develops flavour compounds a warm two-hour prove never reaches, and cold dough hitting 175 degree oil sets its outer layer before the interior gas expands, which gives a bigger, more even puff and a hollower centre.

Notes

Three named changes.