Tanzanian Winter Squash

A fellow media professional, Iman Lipumba (pictured above), just taught me a cool winter squash recipe from her home in Tanzania. See below for the recipe and story. 

The Story

What to Do With Winter Squash

Thank you, Tanzania!

By Lindsay Sterling

Over green smoothies upstairs at the Public Market House, I asked Iman Lipumba, a 22-year-old photographer and writer from Tanzania, if she’d teach me how to cook her favorite dish from home.

“I don’t really know how to cook,” she confessed. “In Tanzania, it’s common for most middle class, working families to have a cook. For someone to come every day and cook, clean, and do laundry, you would pay the equivalent of $30 a month.”

Iman’s family’s housekeeper, Celina, grew up in a rural village where she had to walk an hour and a half to school. When Celina’s father left her family with no income, she quit school to make money as a live-in housekeeper in the city of Dar es Salaam. Iman’s family is encouraging her to finish high school while working.

When Iman was growing up in Tanzania, she did spend some time helping her housekeeper in the kitchen. “Making coconut milk used to be my job,” Iman recalled. “I used a mbuzi. It’s like a short stool you sit on. At the edge of it is a circular piece of metal with sharp edges and you use it to scrape the coconut meat out of the coconut. Then you soak the coconut [meat] in water, massage it with your hands, and let it sit for a couple hours before you strain it.”

            Iman and I decided to learn together how to cook two of her family’s regular dishes by using a new cookbook that had crossed my desk: A Taste of Tanzania: Modern Swahili Recipes from the West, by Miriam R. Kinunda. “Green bananas and beef is a staple,” Iman said, paging through the cookbook in her West End apartment kitchen. “We’d eat it at least once a week. It is a regional specialty in northern Tanzania where my mom is from.” We also decided to make pumpkin with cardamom and coconut milk.

Kelly green bananas were surprisingly easy to find at the supermarket. No such luck with Tanzanian pumpkin. Miriam Kinunda thankfully noted in her recipe: “I find that pumpkins in America are very mushy, so I use banana-squash or kabocha squash instead, which is almost as starchy as the Tanzanian pumpkins.” We ended up using blue hubbard squash, which worked great. Butternut would have been great, too.

Iman and I peeled the squash, cleaned out the seeds, and cut the flesh into chunks about an inch wide. In a large pot we cooked the onions with ginger and cardamom and then added coconut milk, water, and the squash. We cooked it with the lid on until the squash was tender. Before I took a bite, Iman noted that people at home sprinkle cinnamon on top as a condiment. The result was creamy, sweet, and delicious.

For the beef and bananas, we boiled bite-sized pieces of beef until tender. In a separate large pot we sautéed onions with black pepper, cumin, fresh ginger, turmeric, garlic, and cilantro. We added tomato paste, and fresh tomatoes, and let them cook down until they disappeared. Then we added coconut milk, beef broth, cooked beef, and segments of peeled green banana. The meal was comparable to meat and potato stew, but with a creamy, peppery sauce. The green bananas were not banana-y or sweet at all. They tasted like fingerling potatoes, so much so that you could fool someone. I’m looking forward to doing just that. Banana-phobes, look out.

For the recipes, click at right. To see Iman’s recent documentary about her family's housekeeper, Celina, visit http://www.imanlipumba.com/celina.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2014

The Recipe - Winter Squash

Tanzanian Winter Squash Soup

Futari Ya Maboga

As cooked with Iman Lipumba from Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, in Portland, Maine, 2014. Adapted from A Taste of Tanzania, by Miriam R. Kinunda.

2 Tbsp oil
1/2 small onion, medium dice
1 1/2 pound butternut squash (or kobocha or hubbard), peeled and seeded, and sliced into rectangular planks 1/2" x 2" inches
1/2 inch fresh ginger, peeled and grated or finely chopped
1 tsp cardamom powder or 3 whole black/brown cardamon pods
1/2 tsp salt
1 can coconut milk
1/2 tsp turmeric
1 cup water
dash cinnamon to taste

Heat oil in large pot and saute onion until brown. Add ginger and cardamon, stir for one minute, then add water, coconut milk, and salt. Stir and bring to a boil. Add squash and turmeric. Once liquid boils again, cover pan and turn heat to low. Try not to stir or bump the squash if you want nice large pieces. Remove cardamon pods if you used them. Serve pieces of squash with sauce. Sprinkle cinnamon on top of each dish to taste.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2014