I remember spending time in the kitchen with Bibi as a kid. She’d be cooking huge pots of Briyani, making loads of dough for Chapati as well as a few fried sweet treats for the Zanzibari community. Everyone came to her and she would keep busy in the kitchen for days.
I’d always bother her and ask questions and she would tell me to shut up and then throw me some dough to play with so I could feel busy like her. I would then make sure she fried or baked my creation and then I would give her a list of people I wanted it to go to. She has instilled this idea of cooking and feeding people into me. It’s why I still do it now.
Most of all, Bibi is the Queen of Fried Food. While it may seem unhealthy in Zanzibar they only had stove tops and no ovens so frying was the only form of feeding. To Bibi, fried food isn't bad for her, it’s all she knows. It’s home food. I promise you this woman can fry just about anything and I can also promise it will not taste like it's just been soaked in loads of oil…
‘Mandazi’ are the food I associate Bibi with the most. She makes the tastiest, fluffiest ones and always has a craving for them. She has to dunk one in her tea every night and to be honest I don't blame her because they are the most more-ish things around.
- Dina Macki
Making Mandazi
You’ll need
650g plain flour (+extra for dusting)
215g caster sugar
400ml warm coconut milk
7g Yeast
1 TBSP ground cardamom
1 Egg (optional, I use it if I want them more spongey on the inside)
1 Litre of vegetable or sunflower oil for deep frying
Method
Pour the yeast into the coconut milk and allow it to ferment for about 5 minutes.
Combine the rest of the ingredients in a bowl.
Then add in the coconut/yeast mixture.
Knead for 15 minutes by hand or 7-10 minutes in a mixer.
Once it has come together, is smooth and there is no flour left, cover the bowl and leave to rest in a warm place for at least an hour!
As soon as it doubled in size you can place it onto a well floured surface and begin to shape.
Separate the dough into roughly 5-6 pieces (depending how big you want the Mandazi).
Knead each piece slightly then shape into a smooth ball.
Then one by one take a ball and roll it out into a flat circle. You’re looking for a thickness of a coin or 2.
Using a knife or pizza cutter, cut in half each way. Leaving you with 4 triangles.
Repeat with the other balls of dough.
Then cover the triangles with a clean cloth and leave to rise for another 30 minutes.
When ready, heat your oil (it needs to be hot).
Then firstly test with one triangle, by carefully dropping it in the oil. It should rise straight to the top and begin to puff up. If so, add in some more, leaving enough room for them to move around.
You want them to brown slightly on one side then flip them over to do the same for the other. They say a true test of a Mandazi is to see if it look like it’s about to pop and also have a white rim around the middle. So look out for those signs too!
Make sure to keep an eye on your oil, if the Mandazi’s turn a dark brown very quickly, that is a sign to lower the heat.
Fry all of them and place on some paper towel to soak up excess oil .
Then enjoy with a gorgeous cup of tea!
Bibi
Born 1938, Zanzibar
About Dina
Born and raised in the UK to an Omani & Zanzibari family, Dina Macki is a food writer and developer who draws on her heritage to create food with Middle Eastern flavour.
If you drop by her instagram, you’ll see she’s heavily influenced by her grandma, the inimitable Bibi.