With cardamon yoghurt and summer berries
By Poppy
Somali cuisine is noted for its use of staples for both sweet and savoury purposes. Canjeero or Roti are not exempt from this tradition; being used to either scoop up chicken suqaar, or used as conduits for sugar and honey. As such, they can appear at any or all meals throughout the day.
Malawax – Somali Pancakes – are another such example. A basic recipe of flour and water creates a thick paste that forms hardy circles to be smeared with honey or ripped and eaten with meat dishes. Thinner, richer batters blended with milk, eggs or both, form crisp crepes onto which ghee is melted and then topped with a sprinkling of sugar.
Like any good, stodgy carbohydrate, Malawax are versatile and satisfying. They can provide a refreshing summer breakfast or comforting autumnal treat. It is the former that I am sharing here today.
This Malawax recipe is of the richer crepe variety, with a dominant cardamom theme. The batter itself is scented with the spice and the warm richness of the freshly fried pancake is balanced with the cool sourness of the cardamom yogurt. Fresh berries explode with the taste of summer.
This is my go-to recipe to start the day on a hot Saturday morning. It is the kind of breakfast I associate with the summer holidays – indulgent and messy. If you can eat this outdoors, you should.
Ingredients
Makes around 8
250ml milk
125g plain flour
1 egg, plus one yolk if you can spare it
2 heaped tsp cardamom powder
4 tbsp of natural or ‘skye’ yoghurt
Selection of seasonal berries (strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, blackcurrants, redcurrants etc.) – handful per Malawax
30g flaked almonds
2 tbsp Honey
Icing sugar for dusting
Method
Start with the batter. Beat together the flour, milk, egg and half of the cardamom powder until smooth. It should have a fairly runny consistency. The addition of an extra yolk is not essential, but its addition will add to the richness and deepness of colour of the Malawax. On the other hand of you prefer a lighter crepe, replace 2-3tbsp of the milk with water. Once you are sure there are no lumps in the mix, put it in the fridge for at least half an hour. If you want to make this the night before then that is fine too.
Mix the remaining cardamom with the yoghurt – a natural or skye variety are best as they are less sweet and balance the sweetness of the fruit and honey. Put the cardamom yoghurt into the fridge to keep cool until needed.
Heat up a non-stick frying pan on a medium to high heat. The trick here is to use a really good non-stick pan that has not been damaged by scratches and do not use a lubricant. The type of pan that when you add oil to it the oil clumps together and swirls around the pan and returns back to the centre (it doesn’t ‘coat‘ the pan very well.) If your pan is a bit worn, grease the pan with butter, olive oil or ghee before adding the batter.
Toast the almond flakes for a few minutes, tossing regularly, until they are slightly browned and giving off their aroma. Tip onto a side plate and return the pan to the heat.
Add one ladle of the batter to the frying pan. Immediately press the bottom of the ladle into the batter in the centre of the pan and stir the ladle to swirl the mixture outwards to the edges of the pan. This technique is the same as making a Sri Lankan dosa – where the crepe has thin ridges resembling a record.
After a few seconds, when bubbles appear in the top of the pancake, lift the edge of the crepe with a spatula to check the colouring on the underside – you are looking for a medium brown shade showing that it is cooked.
Flip the pancake (or turnover with the spatula, if feeling less adventurous) and cook the underside for a few more seconds.
Turn out on to plate if serving immediately, or a piece of kitchen paper if making a batch.
Spread the cardamom yoghurt onto the pancake and top with the berries. Fold, twist or roll into your desired shape. Top with a drizzle of the honey, sprinkle of the almonds and dusting of the icing sugar. Scoff immediately.
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