BAKING CHIKONDAMOYO – AFRICAN BREAD
If you go around any city in Malawi, easily you will find people buying bread in the supermarkets or groceries. In these places, just bread made of wheat flour is being sold. Wheat flour is one of many products imported, not only here in Malawi but in so many countries in Africa. The cereals that are produced in Malawi are maize and millet, with exception of the districts alongside Lake Malawi where rice is produced.
We heard about African bread or Chikondamoyo and we wondered if it was made by wheat flour. We could not find in any market. Later, we discovered that this bread is made of two major ingredients, maize and soya, crops that easily grow in Malawi lands. So, it was strange for us to don’t find this nutritious bread available to the customers, since it should be cheaper and not to mention that should incentivize the local economy.
With this in mind, we took the first step to learn how to bake Chikondamoyo.
Some families make their homemade Chikondamoyo but it takes time to bake it what means that a person that works outside doesn’t have this time to ‘waste’ in the early morning. So, we see here a great market opportunity, a nourishing low-cost and delicious bread made from maize, the staple food in Malawi.
We scheduled to make Chikondamoyo together with our friend Richard Chipeta and his daughter Cecilia at their home.
At first place, we bought maize grains and soya beans and after we selected them. The ones not suitable we put them aside.
After that, we went to the nearest mill to grind both soya and maize grains
We came back at home and separate a portion of the maize and soya flour into a bowl. There’s no need to sieve the flour. To that portion we added sugar and a pinch of salt.
Later we put a little bit of soda, not too much not too little, approximately 10 g to don’t taste bitter. The next step was to mix 2 eggs, add oil to the dough and oil the pan as well. Then, we popped the dough into it.
Finally, we baked the bread for 15 minutes in the stove. On the bottom it was just maximum of 3 pieces of charcoal to don’t burn it. On the opposite, on the top we added more charcoal to cook homogeneously the entire bread.
And plim* Chikondamoyo is ready!