Canjeelo (Mogadishan Injera)

Canjeelo (Mogadishan Injera)

We have seen how the cuisines of the Swahili, the Arab, and Asian, as well as the European, have all influenced the Somali.  Somalis will readily admit to all those, but not to the influences of our neighbors and especially to the Ethiopian influence. This is perhaps after we turned from the Europeans and the Arabs, and gained our independence, our governments went to war with Ethiopia, over the Ogadenia region-- so named for the Ogaden tribe that mostly inhabits there and who are Somali. 

I grew up in a period in the 1980s where the anti-Ethiopian mentality became such an ingrained part of the culture, where songs took stage on the national radio as part of the propaganda to distant us from our neighbors and where you would hear lyrics that warned “Enemy doormat don’t sleep, your grave is nearby so don’t sleep, stay awake and be greatly aware!” (“Nin lagu socdoow ha seexan, iil baad sidaa ha seexan, so jeed oo si weyn u feejignoow”). 

Yes, the Ethiopian cuisine has influenced us too. The injera is the national dish of the Ethiopian people. In all corners of the country, it’s served as the very base of the food on which literally all the other items are placed upon.  In Ethiopia, this flatbread is made of teff, a grain that growly only in the Ethiopian Highlands, which makes it expensive even for the average Ethiopians elsewhere. 

Of course, the Somali injera is different. The Somalis have Somalized it as they have Somalized the halva and the chai. Not only that, we have transformed it and then have shared it forward to our friends in Yemen where, just like in northern Somali communities such as Somaliland and Djibouti, it’s known as laxoox. 

The injera in the south is again different. First of all, we divide the work. The first portion of the recipe, the khamiir, is professionally handled at the neighborhoods by the makiinada cajiinta (literally: the batter machine), which is generally a family-run small joint where the first batter of cornmeal and all-purpose flour is mechanically mixed. 

“Aren’t you glad we don’t have to mix that by hand anymore,” one of my aunts once said, ash she made the famous sound of beating the canjeelo batter. “We thank the modern times for giving us tireless machines to help us prepare these things,” she laughed, making sure she doesn’t splash it all over the rest of us. “Oh, God, we thank you.”

It was certainly my first introduction to the world of convenience. 

As the middle child, I was always the one sent out to these kinds of errands. I wasn’t allowed to cook it, but getting the cajiin was definitely in the job description for a Somali boy. You always got the batter in the evening, so that it could be mixed with the self-rising flour that would make sure to get the canjeelo fermented by morning, and no Somali mother who had a son would ever send her daughter to fetch errands after dark.

“No, that is your job,” my mother would say whenever I tried to get out of it. I soon realized there was no point in fighting it, so I decided to make the best of it by befriending the kids of the batter store.  Eventually, I met the parents and it was the mother who really got me interested in the world of flatbreads.

“Don’t tell anyone,” she whispered to me one evening, after telling me the history of this flatbread and how it went back to the Ethiopians. “We all like to think it belongs to us,” she chucked, “I know it doesn’t. Anyone who has ever been to Ethiopia realizes that sad fact much sooner than they would like.” 

I wasn’t sad, I delighted at the history of it.  Canjeelo has always been one of my favorite food items, especially when served with goat liver for breakfast.  It was the breakfast served to me on the morning of my circumcision, at the age of seven and without anesthesia, and I must say it did help a lot to have had that breakfast beforehand. 

But even in its plain way, when we eat it sweet immersed in black tea and sesame oil, I still thought the canjeelo to be a great dish. The mix of sweet, starch and hot liquid was certainly the best way to beat the blues after the dugsi, the Qur’anic School, especially on mid-mornings after having been whipped for not memorizing the verses right. 

Thank you, Ethiopia.

INGREDIENTS: 

2 cups of self-rising flour

1/2 cup of all-purpose flour

1/2 cup of white corn flour

3 cup of water

1/2 tbsp of active yeast

METHOD:

First, we are going to do the cajiin the old school way. In a small bowl, mix the all-purpose flour, the corn flour, the yeast, and one of the cups of the water. If you are going to use the canjeelo for lunch and plan to use it with sauces, then you can add a half teaspoon of salt.  If you plan to use the canjeelo for breakfast and with sweet tea, then you can add a tablespoon of brown sugar. Let that mix together nicely and then put it aside for about a good hour. The longer you leave it, the more the canjiin will ferment.

After the hour is up, it’s time to make the main batter. You need a bigger bowl, and then you a the cajiin mix with all the other ingredients except the water. You need to add the water as you go, slowly mixing the water in the batter until seventy-five percent of the water is out. Now you have to beat the crap about of it. Place your hand into the batter, and slap… always making sure your pull your hand to you, with the bowl a little tilted away from you. If you beat it around fifteen times, it should be good. Then you put the batter aside for at least two hours. You don't want to ferment it for more than eight hours, though. That is because the more you ferment, the more "fermented" it will tase.

The best way of cooking the canjeelo is by using a cast iron comal, a stainless steel ladle, and a skinny stainless steel turner. A normal comal is too thin, and a cast iron skillet is too limiting. You need an open surface that can handle lots of heat. However, you can use a regular comal with low-medium heat. That takes nearly twice the 30-45 second it would normally take with a cast iron comal. 

Regardless of what you’re using, you don’t need a cover. Grab about a half of a cup of a batter into the ladle and place it in the middle of the comal. Then swirl it clockwise, almost not touching the bottom of the comal, until all the batter is spread out. Leave it on the heat until all the batter disappears from sight and you begin to see little brown spots coming through. No need to turn it over, it's time to take it off the heat. Then place each canjeelo on top of the other, face up. 

Enjoy! 

Shaax (Somali Chai)

Shaax (Somali Chai)

March to September, each single year, the Indian Ocean kicks itself into gear as the monsoon season begins in various parts of the East. Months and months of irregular wind, which might or might not bring tons of rain, forces the dhow culture out of work. Boats are parked on the shores, and folks just wait for God to lighten up their atmosphere.  And, of course, fish is a bit more expensive during that time.

In Mogadishu, the monsoon manifests itself through the rainiest months of May, June, and July.  To celebrate the beginning of the dhow season, the land that had just become ripe for planting, and surviving the storms, the Somali celebrate with the dabshid, which normally takes place at the end of July.  The dabshid, which is a festival of mock fighting and jumping over fires, is very similar to the one that takes place in Zanzibar. In their Mwaka Kogwa, the Zanzibars also have their mock fights and make a fire. 

Of course, I have had the Somali chai many times before. But it was during one of the dabshid celebrations that I realized all of its history. We had just finished the mock fights in late afternoon, had become tired and hungry, and were about to leave when we saw an old lady making the tea. Folks surrounded her, listening to her as she traced every part of its ingredients to its historical place. 

“This heyl, you see,” she said, holding up a bag of cardamom, “it originally comes to us from southern India,” she smiled, as she grabbed a bag of cloves. “This dhagayare,” she noted, holding out one piece. “Look at it, that is why we call it small-eared,” caressing the ends of the flower buds, the crowd laughing. “Indonesia, that is who we have to thank for this one.”

You could see the crowd didn’t know that about the cloves, because as far as we knew this was a Zanzibari plant. Of course, Zanzibar is the largest producer of cloves in Africa but she was right that it was from Indonesia. But that wasn’t really what shocked the crowd the most about the cloves, it was actually when she pulled out a cigarette.

“No, no,” she dismissed them with a hand wave, “I will not smoke it, I’m just here to educate. This is a kretek, a kind of cigarette that is highly popular in Indonesia. Looking at it one would never know it was made of cloves,” she sneaked in, leaving the attentive crowd rattled up, half laughing while others were left with their mouths open. “Yeah, it’s true. Strange things.”

She also discussed the nutmeg and sugar having their roots in Indonesia, how the cinnamon reached us from China, and the ginger coming to us from India. She discussed how the marriage between the dhow and caravan industries created various chais around the monsoon nations, as they pretty much were dealt with the same fate. When you couldn’t venture into the sea, you couldn’t deliver goods on the camels either-- the same wind affected both; you could be buried in water or sand, your choice.

That afternoon, the shaax became much more than tea. It suddenly interested me, my curios soul, and I began to pay attention whenever anyone was making it. Of course, I always noted how different it was from black tea, the bigeys, of which its plain reddish color I thought was boring next to the colorful chai. Now I had all the reasons in the world to learn how to make it.

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup of reduced-fat cow milk

1 cup of water

1 tbsp of loose black tea

3 tbsp of brown sugar

1/4 tsp of cardamom

1/4 tsp of nutmeg

1/4 tsp of cloves

1/4 tsp of cinnamon

1/4 tsp of ginger

METHOD: 

As colorful as it is, it really is one of the easiest things to make-- but only once you master the ingredient portions. Then it’s simple: add everything together and bring it to boil. Be very careful because the chai will overflow if you don’t remove it from the fire right away when it comes to boil. If you want it to have a “burn” taste, you can keep putting it back. Each time you put back, it will have a noticeable different taste. If you put it back more than five times, your chai might become a bit too different from the Somali Shaax!