Muufo

Ingredients

Dough

• 400 gmaize flour
• or sorghum flour
• 200 gplain flour
• 7 gdried yeast
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• 1 teaspoonsugar
• about 400 ml warm water

To bake

• a foorno
• a clay oven
• or a heavy cast iron pan
• or a very hot oven with a stone
• water, for the hands

To serve

• with a stew
• crumbled into sweet tea
• with sesame oil and sugar
• at breakfast

Directions

1. Warm the water to blood temperature. Stir the yeast and the sugar into it. Let it stand until it foams up. Give it about ten minutes to foam. Put both flours in a large bowl. Add all of the salt in to them.
2. Stir them together thoroughly. The two flours must be evenly combined. Whisk them together before adding liquid. Make a well in the middle of the flours. Pour in the foaming yeast liquid. Bring it together into a soft dough. It should be soft and slightly sticky.
3. Knead it for about eight minutes. But it still needs real working. Put the dough in an oiled bowl. Cover it and leave it somewhere warm. Let it rise up quite noticeably. Give it an hour or a little more. Divide it into even sized pieces. Roll each one into a smooth ball.
4. Let them rest for fifteen minutes. Put a heavy pan over a high heat. Let it get thoroughly hot through. Cast iron takes time to heat through. Press each ball out with wet fingertips. Work from the centre outwards. Aim for a round about half a centimetre thick. Press rather than roll every time. Press your fingertips into the surface.
5. Make a pattern of dimples across it. They also stop it puffing unevenly. Lay a bread onto the dry hot pan. Give it about three full minutes. Oil would fry it rather than bake it. Turn it over with a wide spatula. Give it another three minutes.
6. Heat the oven with a stone as hot as it goes. Slide the breads onto the hot stone. Stack the breads as they come out. Wrap the stack in a clean cloth. That keeps them soft and pliable.
7. Break it all up into a deep bowl. Ladle hot stew over the pieces. Crumble it into a cup of sweet tea. It keeps a day in a sealed bag. Warm it briefly to soften it again. It goes hard and dry as it keeps.

Technique

• A foorno is a clay oven heated by a fire inside it, with dough slapped onto the hot inner wall and peeled off with a hook — essentially a tandoor, and the method reached the Benadir coast through Indian Ocean trade. The atlas carries related breads in malooj from Yemen and khubz tannour from Bahrain, though those are wheat while muufo is mainly maize or sorghum, giving a denser crumblier bread.
• Maize and sorghum have no gluten at all, so wheat flour goes in with them: the dough has to hold as a sheet, stick to a vertical wall and peel off in one piece, and gluten is what makes that possible.
• Press the dough out with wet fingertips rather than rolling it, re-wetting your hands for each bread, since the dough clings to dry hands and a rolling pin presses out the gas. Bake it in a dry pan with no oil at all, which would fry rather than bake it.

Substitutions

• A heavy cast iron pan or a very hot oven with a baking stone stand in for the clay oven; neither is identical and the atlas says so.
• Sorghum flour and maize flour are both used, and both are staple grains in Somalia.

Variations

• It is crumbled into savoury stew or into sweet tea, and brushed with sesame oil and sugar in some households.
• Maize bread does not brown like wheat and stays paler, so judge it by feel and by the dark blistered spots.
• Wrap the stack in a cloth as it comes off the heat, since uncovered it goes stiff within minutes.

History

Sorghum or maize bread slapped onto the wall of a clay foorno oven, a Benadir coastal method related to Indian tandoor baking.

Frequently asked questions

What is Muufo?

Muufo is a bread & pastry from Somalia: clay-oven corn flatbread crumbled into stews or sweet tea. Sorghum or maize bread slapped onto the wall of a clay foorno oven, a Benadir coastal method related to Indian tandoor baking.

How long does Muufo take to make?

Muufo takes 20 minutes plus rising of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes about 6 breads. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Muufo?

Yes, within limits. A heavy cast iron pan or a very hot oven with a baking stone stand in for the clay oven; neither is identical and the atlas says so. Sorghum flour and maize flour are both used, and both are staple grains in Somalia.

What is the most important thing to get right in Muufo?

Stir them together thoroughly. The two flours must be evenly combined. Whisk them together before adding liquid. Make a well in the middle of the flours. Pour in the foaming yeast liquid. Bring it together into a soft dough. It should be soft and slightly sticky.