29/09/2020
19 critical stages of cooking omena: the first 7 will shock you!
Having seen the kind of mistreatment some foods undergo in the group (check the eksibit below) I can no longer keep quiet (Yani sitasimama maovu yakitawala!)
Experience
My mother sold fish. So, part of my training in cooking involved knowing how to cook different types of fish. I loved mgongo wasi because of the kind of broth (sup) that emanated from it. I also loved fried omena. By class five I was an expert in preparing these two kindreds of fish. It is therefore shocking to see young girls mistreating omena and eating them quarter cooked. This kind of behaviour in my community would be condemned as yetho. Anyway, I stopped eating fish out of my own personal choice. Nevertheless, the training Nyambogo accorded had stuck in my head like a hungry leech. I therefore take this opportunity to release this congressional paper on the preparation of omena.
How to prepare omena:
1. Select the omena ( Yani chagua)- Remove stones, shells and other strange objects from the omena.
2. Put the omena in a bowl and baptize it with Laodecian water (Yani ibatize na maji vugu vugu si Moro)
3. Leave the omena to reminisce their former years in the lake for 5 minutes ( Yani ziache majini kwa dakika tano)
4. Using your fore phallanges (Yani mikono), confuse confuse the omena gently inside the bowl (Yani changanya changanya dagaa ndani ya bakul). Take care you don't use too much force. You may cause the omena heart break. Heart broken omena is broken and does not appeal to the eye.
5. Remove the omena and place it in another bowl.
6. Rinse the omena with clean water.
7. Allow the omena to dry in the sun. You can also put it in a pan under vere vere low heat.
Now the cleansing ritual is over!🤣
8. Once the omena is properly dehydrated ( check their eyes for symptoms of dehydration), put them in your pan and apply low heat.
9. When you perceive the omena is starting to kworol with the pan (Yani imedry kabisa inatoa sauti ya kurrrrr), add some oil nani.
10. Continue stirring gently as you add the oil. But don't be too enthusiastic with the oil. You are not creating another lake or oil field for the omena. Don't think it will detect that misplaced favor. It is dead and the dead know nothing!
11. As the omena starts to turn golden brown and begins to lose it's shiny appearance, be ready with the rest of your peraphernelia: spring onion, tometos, tumeric, teargas (cayenne pepper) and Himalayan pink salt ( common table salt is for common people, achana nayo)😎.
12. And the spring onion and nyanya in such a manner that the omena floats over them (Yani omena ikae juu yao). Let them cook on medium heat.
13. After some 7 minutes or when you see the tometo removing its water mix the omena with the nyanya and spring onion.
14. Lower the heat...add a little bit of ginger, garlic, and cayenne pepper ( if you are not a hired mourner, just be good to yourself nani), and salt (don't fall with the salt into the pan, it's meant to add taste not preserve!).
15. Add some tumeric poda. It turns the omena yelo.
17. Add a litu milk or any other edible liquid but not water! Omena must never experience water thrice in death. If you are thirsty drink water.
18. Let it simmer on low heat for five minutes.
19. Serve with brrrrown ugali.
NB: if you are not patient, leave omena alone
Annals of Duol Nation,
Department of Math and Mandas ,
By The Patriarch, aka Son of the Soil.
