East African Mandazi

East African Mandazi are great when eaten for breakfast, accompanied by a nice cuppa tea !

Mandazi can best be described as an East African version of the donut. They are deep-fried and slightly sweet and are traditionally served in East Africa for breakfast - I especially enjoy eating them with a nice cuppa tea on the side !

Mandazi are also quite a popular ‘street food’ meaning that you can easily buy them along the roadside in the larger cities and even in the smaller towns. You will find them on the menu of most local guest houses for breakfast, and they are also cheap to buy and very filling - so are ideal for the traveller on a budget !

What makes them different from the traditional donut is that they usually don’t have a hole in the middle, and they are cut into a diamond shape instead of a traditional round donut shape. The addition of spices like Cardamom to the dough also makes them different. Some Mandazi (typically made in the coastal areas) also have coconut milk added to the dough.

My favourite Mandazi is the plain variety, which I served recently to my mother-in-law who is out from England at the moment and wanted to experience some traditional Tanzanian food -:

Mandazi

2 cups Flour
5 tbsp Sugar
1 tsp Cardamom powder
1 sachet of Yeast
1 cup lukewarm Milk
Oil for frying

Sift the flour, sugar & Cardamom powder into a bowl. Sprinkle the yeast over these ingredients and then add the lukewarm milk. Stir to blend and knead into a soft and pliable dough. Leave covered in a warm place until doubled in size. Punch down and roll out flat. Cut into diamond shapes & leave these covered in a warm place until doubled in size again. Deep fry in very hot oil until golden brown on both sides. Remove, drain and serve immediately.

Vetkoek (“Fat Cakes”) & East African Mandazi

Traditional South African "Vetkoek" which are similar to East African "Mandazi" - and just as delicious !

These are quite a decadent treat. I rarely eat, or cook, anything that is deep fried and by this I don’t mean that I am a saint – far from it ! Sometimes, I make these for lunch as my husband really loves them. If you fry them quickly in very hot oil and blot them with kitchen paper afterwards, they are not too greasy. You can serve them with either a savoury filling (mince, cheese) or a sweet filling (jam, syrup, honey).

In Tanzania we have a similar dish called Mandazi. These are also, typically, deep fried ‘cakes’ but they are made of a sweetened dough (rather than a batter) and are usually seasoned with a little cardamom, cinnamon or ginger. (I suppose you could compare them in taste to a not-so-sweet doughnut ? )

They are usually eaten at breakfast and are also popular roadside snacks for early morning commuters. I love Mandazi and usually eat them when we are traveling here or in Kenya as they can be found on many breakfast buffet’s in both the upmarket hotels and local “Guesti’s” (Guest Houses) alike.


Vetkoek

1 cup Flour
1 tsp Baking Powder
Pinch of Salt
1 Egg, beaten
½ cup Water

Sift the dry ingredients together. Add the beaten egg & water and blend to make a smooth batter. Drop batter by the spoonful into a pan of hot oil and fry (turning frequently) until golden brown.

Typical Tanzanian Shops & Village Life

One shop looks much like the next - what makes them stand out are their inventive names & colourful signage !

This is a photo of a typical Tanzanian shop – known as a “Duka” in the local Kiswahili language. You will find shops like this in most of the local villages, towns and cities. This particular shop is in a small town which we pass through on our way to school and to the city beyond. It is about 45 minutes from the farm.

I’m not sure how much you can make out in the picture, but there is a fuel pump outside the shop, which is called (see the Coca Cola sign on the right) “Okashi Shop” and the shop to the left (another Coca Cola sign) is called “Mama Tonga Shop”.

Coca Cola signs can be found everywhere here. Even in the most remotest, dustiest villages you are sure to find a Coke sign – how’s that for marketing, hey ? Other popular ‘branding’ which you find adding a splash of colour in the villages are logos/ads for mobile phone network providers, soap powder and toothpaste.

Tanzania has some amazing artists and any type of sign you need made or copied, can be easily ordered from a roadside “sign writer” and they will paint it for you out in the open, under the hot African sun. Many dull, dilapidated buildings have been brightened up with colourful signs and after 10 years of living here, I still have a chuckle at some of the shop names that I see.

Hairdressing salons are called “saloons” (think Wild West !) and are nothing more than a small, dark room with a few mirrors, chairs and basic equipment. In one of our local villages we have a shop called “Eat Mango Stationery Supplies” (I kid you not !) and we also have a “Good News Bar” and “Juma’s Fresh Shop”. Local butcheries have whole animal carcasses hanging in open windows (no glass) and you simply go up and order however many kilo’s of meat you require, which is then hacked off for you and weighed on an old rusty scale. (Butcheries are best visited early in the morning - before the flies come out!) I should just add here that I buy my meat from the only ‘proper’ butchery in the city, which has electricity, freezers and fridges !

In every village you will find ladies sitting along the roadside cooking food (like whole maize, mandazi - deep fried sweet dough 'cakes' - or meat) on small, open fires for passerby to puchase. The women are always wearing brightly coloured local kitenge cloths around their waists and heads, and this, too, adds a lovely splash of colour to the otherwise dusty villages.

Livestock such as cattle, goats and chickens are a regular part of the village landscape, as are skinny scavenging dogs. Wooden carts are used to transport goods around the villages – anything from furniture to vegetables – and these are all hand drawn by muscular young men who manoeuvre the carts in and out of the traffic without so much as batting an eyelid.

Just writing about village life here has made me realize that I really do need to take some more photo’s so that I can put them on the blog – especially of some of the local butcheries and the colourful, humorous signs … but hopefully what I’ve described here, has given you a small idea of what life in a Tanzanian village is like !