English Af-Soomaali Français عربي Kalamudo www.xawaash.com When Leila’s mother, Maedo, came from the UK to visit us for a few days last week, it was only natural that we would prepare the video for Kalamudo that many of you have been requesting for so long. She told us that instead of repeating the previous recipe,…
English Af-Somaali Français Meatballs always take me back to Mogadishu, Somalia. They take me to Moallim Jama School, the school that I went to for my last year of elementary education. They remind me of the ‘breakfast lady’ who used to serve us small meatball sandwiches in the schoolyard during our mid-morning break. Back then,…
If you have never had a plantain, it tastes pretty much like a potato when a raw or semi-ripe plantain is cooked. We prepared this stew for some guests and they all thought they were eating potatoes. Plantains are a staple food in southern Somalia and are added to both savoury and sweet dishes….
The eye of round roast is a very lean cut and can be quite tough if not cooked properly. There are different ways of cooking it but our favourite method is to cook it slowly in a flavourful broth. The meat releases its juices, making the broth even more flavourful. Even though the cooked meat…
Oodkac or Muqmad is what Somalis prepare whenever they want to preserve meat. During times of plenty, that is the rainy days, the nomads save for a dry day. Rainy days bring abundance (barwaaqo), when the milk from the herd is flowing and meat becomes available. The preserved meat was sometimes the only food…
This has been the seventh weekend in a row that we had guests over for lunch. No, we are not complaining, but just stating it as a fact. Actually, we got to see many friends and family members that we have not seen for years and we enjoyed their company. Whenever we have guests…
Many stories can be told through food. Food transcends borders and it can connect us and become a means of creating goodwill between people. From the beginning, our objective was to reach out to our neighbours and to understand them through their culture. This meal was prepared for us by our friend, Fatma Nasrai,…
One of the things we miss about Somalia is the way the whole family used to eat the midday meal together. In Mogadishu, civil servants used to finish work at 2:00 pm, which was also the end of the school day. By 3:00 pm, the hustle and bustle of city life would wind down and…
The Japanese sukiyaki beef has a lot of history, but this sukiyaki-cut beef steak has a simple story. When you can’t afford expensive cuts of beef and you can’t be without steak, what is the solution? Well, you take a cheap cut of ungraded beef and you slice it very thin. Give the steaks a…
The traditional Somali Pasta Sauce is prepared with beef cut into very small cubes instead of ground beef. There were two main reasons for this. First and foremost, it was because of home economics. When the family members are served pasta with a meat sauce that they chew, they won’t need another meat dish to…
