Sukuma wiki

Ingredients

• Collard greens — finely shredded700 g
• Onion2
• Tomatoes4
• Garlic4 clove
• Vegetable oil50 ml
• Ground cumin1 tsp
• Lemon1
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Strip the tough stems from the leaves, roll the leaves up and shred them fine.

   12 min

2. 2

   Fry the onion in oil until soft, add the garlic and cumin and warm them a minute.

   8 min

3. 3

   Add the chopped tomatoes and cook seven minutes, until they collapse into a paste.

   9 min

4. 4

   Add the greens, salt them and stir. They collapse by half within a minute.

   3 min

5. 5

   Add half a cup of water, cover and stew ten minutes; the greens should soften but stay green.

   11 min

6. 6

   Finish with lemon juice and serve with ugali or rice.

   2 min

About the dish

The Swahili name means "stretch the week": the dish is cheap and fills out the table when meat is short. It stopped being food of necessity long ago and now appears daily.

The greens are shredded fine and stewed briefly, about ten minutes. Overcooked, they lose their colour and turn into a grey mass.

The tomatoes go in after the onion and must be allowed to break down to a paste. Only then do they bind the dish rather than sitting in it as lumps.

Worth knowing

• — Kale or young cabbage works instead of collards. Spinach does not: it dissolves into water in two minutes.
• — Use little water. The dish should be moist, not swimming — otherwise it will not sit on the ugali.
• — With pieces of meat or smoked fish it becomes a main course. That is how it is served when there is something to add.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

180 kcal

Protein

6 g

Fat

12 g

Carbs

14 g

More from Kenya

• Nyama choma — Goat meat grilled slowly over coals in large pieces, with kachumbari and ugali.