Recipes Made Easy!
Peanut Butter Spinach and Sadza made with Ground Sorghum
This is a typical, traditional recipe in Southern and and parts of Eastern African. Sadza we made in a previous post. It’s made on a daily basis all over Southern Africa but with maize meal. It would have been made with millet or sorghum which are grains that were used in this region before maize was introduced from the new world. Sorghum is a cereal grain that originated in Africa about 5000 years ago where it continues to be an important food source today. When I was younger, I lived with my grandma and she taught me about this type of sadza.
Read more about sorghum and other Africa’s lost crops here.
So I made this with another typical dish, greens with peanut butter. In Zimbabwe the favourite is pumpkin leaves (called muboora in Shona) with peanut butter or African cabbage also known as nyevhe in Shona. I made this dish with the more readily available spinach. Ground sorghum is also available in most African/Asian food stores.
Here is what you will need to make this dish:
About 400g ground sorghum
1.5l water
2 tbsp oil
1 large chopped onion
2 ripe chopped tomatoes
3 tbsp peanut butter
250g Spinach
Salt and pepper
Sadza
First take 150g of the sorghum meal and in a medium sized sauce pan, mix with about 150ml of the cold water to make a paste using a wooden spoon.
Add a litre of the boiling water to the paste. Put on the hob on medium heat and stir continuously until the mixture starts to thicken. If it’s too thick add a bit more of the hot water.
The mixture should look like porridge and if it’s the correct consistency should boil without spilling over. (If it’s still watery and spilling over then add a little more sorghum in a cup, about a 1/4 cup, add cold water to create a paste then stir this mixture to the pot, the mixture should start to thicken after stirring continuously)
Cover and leave to cook for about 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes lower the heat and leave covered for another 5 minutes.
Stir in the remaining sorghum flour gradually taking great care not to get burnt by the spatter.
Keep mixing briskly and to get rid of the lumps grind the mixture against the pot with the wooden spoon, the consistency of the sadza should be the same as mashed potatoes.
Leave on very low heat for another 15 minutes to cook through.
Peanut butter spinach
Heat oil in a pan and add the onions and fry until soft.
Add the chopped tomatoes , season with salt and pepper and cook until soft.
Now add the peanut butter and a little water and stir until the penut butter is mixed in.
Add the spinach and cook for another 10 minutes.
Check for seasoning and serve with hot sadza.
(To give this dish a twist you can add a little birds eye chilli and or bell peppers)
Enjoy!
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