Luwombo, Matooke, and a Shoebill Stork

We were back in Entebbe, in the hotel I first started in.  And we got to really sleep in.  We didn't expect Kalema until about 10:00 or so, and we were staying another night here, so we didn't even have to pack up!  After a relaxing breakfast on the balcony, we headed out to Kampala for a cooking class.  Kalema and Rukia (one of the school teachers) was going to teach us how to make fish luwombo and matooke, national dishes of Uganda.  And they taught us the traditional way!

We first cut our banana and plantain leaves.  Then Susan and Rukia walked up the hill to the market while Kalema and I peeled the green bananas and steamed and prepped the leaves.  Once they got back with vegetables, groundnut paste, and smoked perch, we got started prepping the meal.

First, we mixed the groundnut paste with water.  Then we chopped the vegetables.  Tomatoes, carrots, and onions.  I tried dicing the onions, and I was told I was doing it wrong.  Bruce, do you think I might need some extra kevlar gloves?

After getting the groundnut paste, water, and vegetables to a nice, soupy consistency, we added salt and curry powder.  Then, we cleaned, skinned, and boned the smoked Nile perch.  Basically, just broke it up so we had just the meat.  Then came the fun part - making the bundles!  Soup in banana leaves.  How hard could it be?  Rukia made it look easy!

I, however, failed miserably, and Rukia had to fix my bundle for me.  Then, we made another, bigger bundle for the bananas.  The bundles were all put in pans of water which were set over fires so they could steam.  Some of the luwombo was just put in a pot and cooked like a normal soup.  I think that's probably how I will make it when I get home.  I don't think I have the patience to make the banana leaf bundles!  I'll need to think hard to try to decide what substitution to use for making the matooke bundle.  That stuff's also delicious, and I really need to have both of these on my rotation for regular food!

After everything cooked, we took the bundle of bananas out of the pan and kneeded it - or rather Rukia did, periodically dipping her hands in lukewarm water to cool them from the heat.  That's some hot stuff, and it has to be kneeded while it's hot.  I think I'll need to get some smaller silicone gloves for that.  The ones I have are massive and are used just for grabbing dishes out of the oven.  Everything was worth it as we opened all of the bundles and ate the fruits of our labors!  It was sooo delicious.  My list of things - learn to make or find groundnut paste and find banana leaves or find a substitute for them so I can make matooke in my big steamer that so far only makes crab/lobster boil and tamales!  We got flatware, but the traditional way of eating this is to pick up a piece of matooke and run it through the Luwombo, eating with your fingers!  Mm-mm great! - Better than Campbell's soup!

Between cutting our own banana leaves to cooking over small charcoal fires and considering it was teaching (and we students had no idea what we were doing), this took all afternoon, but it was sooo delicious!

The next morning, we packed everything up and got ready for our last activity before heading to the airport.  I still hadn't seen the shoebilled stork, so Kalema put together one last activity to try to make that happen.  It was raining, but we headed out to the Mabamba Swamp anyway!  We took a motorized canoe from the shore of Lake Victoria to the swamp.  Then we changed from that boat to a smaller one.  We saw lots of birds.

Weaver

Purple Heron

Reed Cormorant

African Jacana

Yellow-billed Duck

Squacco Heron

We went up and down through the different channels, some so thin and across some areas where they had to push the boat with the paddels.  As we were getting worried about the time because we had a plane to catch, we finally found a shoebill stork!  It was extremely shy.  Every time we would get close enough to barely see it, it would take flight and go somewhere else.  As I have said before, a bad picture is better than no picture!  You can barely see it in the standing picture, and the flight picture isn't the clearest in the world, but you can definitely tell it's a shoebill stork!

And we got back and to the airport with plenty of time to catch our flight!