Another Pineapple Cake and Two Matooke recipes

I have a "deeper" post muling in my brain but it's not ready to be written and shared yet. So I resort to kitchen posts that people have told me they enjoy. I do like getting comments... please be generous in your replies either on the blog or in an email or on Facebook. Some days I really need to hear anything from home.

I have three recipes to post, one that is feasible at home and two that require matooke, the green bananas that are a staple of the Ugandan diet. I think you could probably use plantain bananas if you really wanted to try but I can't be sure. Apparently there are many types of bananas and each is used or cooked differently. I will certainly miss the little sweet finger bananas and matooke. I have yet to meet a matooke I didn't like!

Pineapple Cake #2
I like this one better than the previous recipe because the pineapple is cooked directly into the cake. I'm sure you could substitute another fruit of your choice. This is a one dish cake too which is perfect for my kitchen tools.

2 eggs
3/4 white cup sugar (I use a white coffee cup so it's probably close to 1 measuring cup)
1 tsp cinnamon (or a good sprinkle over the batter)
1/2 white cup oil (again, my measuring cup was bigger so maybe 3/4 cup?)
1 white cup chopped pineapple
1/4 pineapple juice (or whatever is at the bottom of the bowl)
1.5 white cups flour (2 regular cups)
2 tsp baking soda


Preheat oven. Again, mine is a gas oven with no temperature so I turn it on high to preheat while I make the batter and then I turn it down to the lowest when I bake it.
In a wok (or other bowl of your choice) beat the eggs, add the sugar and cinnamon, pineapple, and pineapple juice. Mix well. Add the flour and the baking soda.
Pour into the 9x11 pan and bake 25 minutes. Test with a knife. Eat a piece, enjoy and take the rest to the staff at school. My goodness, we can't eat all these cakes I am making!

I'm sure you could use any other fruit in here. I had some papaya that I could have tried in this recipe last week if I'd had the recipe. The papaya wasn't the best, firm and little flavour, so it could have been ideal. I think we are coming to the end of papaya (or pawpaw as they are called here) season. But luckily we are moving into avocado and mango season!

Matooke Recipes

Matooke is a staple here in Uganda and also in Tanzania. Maybe we'll see that it's a staple when we are in Rwanda in December and even in Ethiopia in February (or May). In my previous visits, I've only had matooke boiled and steamed for hours inside matooke leaves but this time we have had the pleasure of eating matooke in sauce. I've been taught how to cook matooke this way and have tried to make it using Mum's chilli egg recipe. YUMMY!

Both recipes begin with the same ingredients:

 6-8 matooke bananas (small or large - apparently smaller are longer to cook and as an aside to give you an impression of the rate of inflation, a large bunch of matooke was about 5-8,000 shillings in 2008. It is now 20-30,000 shillings. And yet wages have not increased....)
1 large onion, white if you can find it but red is common
3 medium tomatoes

Cook the matooke:

- chop off the end and use a sharp knife to slice off the peel. No, the matooke does not peel like a regular banana, the peel stays stuck and is a pain to slice off if you decide to try to be smart and peel it with your thumb like a yellow banana. As it is, matooke is sticky so using a knife is a lot better. Make sure to get all the peel off because if you leave some of the green pith(?) on the fruit, it will start to turn brown.
- put the peeled matooke in a pot of cold water as soon as it is peeled
- once all the matoke is peeled, dump out the water, rinse the bananas, cover in fresh water, cover the pot and turn the heat on high to get the water boiling. Leave them for a good 20 minutes while you get everything else done.

Make the sauce:
1. Ugandan Sauce

- chop the onion into chunks. Fry in a couple tbsp oil.
- chop the tomatoes into chunks and add to the onions once they have browned a bit
- add a tsp salt and a heaping tsp fish masala (a mixture of 16 spices - the first five are cloves, black pepper, cardamon, coriander, cumin...) or maybe just a stock cube...
- after the matooke is cooked (check like you do a potato), add a cup of the cooking water to onions and tomatoes
- gently add the matooke to the sauce and let simmer a few minutes

An alternative I've been told is to put the uncooked matooke in the pan, lay the onions and tomato on and around the matooke, sprinkle salt and masala over it all then cover with water. Bring to a boil, turn down heat and let simmer until most of the water has evaporated and the bananas are cooked.

2. Mum's Chilli Egg Sauce
- slice the onion thinly
- heat 1/2 cup oil in a pan and get the onions frying
- add 1 - 2 tbsp chilli powder (our chilli powder is actual ground chillies so I used less than it called for or else I doubt we would have been able to eat it) and fry the onion and chilli powder
- add the tomatoes, cover and let them become a sloppy mess
- stir in a stock cube (I dissolved the stock cube in a cup of the matooke water because our tomatoes are dryer than the ones we get at home)
- gently add the matooke to the sauce and let simmer a few minutes

Wish I could share this with you - it is really delicious. I will miss matooke!