Vegetable soup and attempted South African " Ujeqe"

After seeing the post by @lizelle where she was treated to a steamed bread called "ujeqe", made by a friend, I needed to give it a go.

It was something I've never done before. I thought I'd better make a soup to to go with it and clear out items in my fridge and cupboards.

The weather is ugly in many ways. It's been snowing and cold. Today will go to -20 celcius. I haven't been able to get myself to go very far. I haven't seen the sun in so long. It doesn't even come into the windows much. This is a good time to use what I have and hide inside.

A vegetable soup Canadian style was in order. What makes this Canadian? A Canadian made it. That's all.

I sometimes lay off the spices to have a break from the stimulation of chilies. A bowl of easy comfort and some steamed bread, if it turns out. We'll see.

First the soup.

Vegetable soup

140 g green lentils dry
100 g corn
100 g peas
70 g diced carrot
400 g cabbage
250 g diced onion
30 g minced garlic
70 g diced potato
150 g bell peppers
380 g white beans (canned)
700 g tomatoes
3 tbs cider vinegar
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp paprika
1 tbs pepper
1 tsp thyme
3 bay leaves
1 litre vegetable soup broth

I usually have a basic vegetable broth made and kept in the fridge. I roughly chop onion, garlic, carrots and celery. I add them to an oiled pot with parsley, peppercorns, and bay leaves. They are covered with water then brought to a boil, then simmered for an hour. I never follow a recipe for this. At the end I strain and season well with salt and sometimes garlic powder and onion powder. It depends on how it tastes. I sometimes used store bought ones but find that many have MSG in them which I try to avoid. On occasion I will use them. The ones without MSG taste the same as mine so if I have time, I make my own.

The lentils were rinsed well and soaked overnight. It's not necessary to soak them that long but I just did it the night before. I cooked them a little separately before I added them to the soup.

I started the soup by cooking the onions, garlic, carrot then peppers.

I added the cabbage and spices and cooked down.

The tomatoes were from a can that I had. I put them in the blender a little, keeping a few chunks aside for texture.

I waited until the end to add the peas, beans and corn.

Near the end I added the cooked lentils.

Wait it's not finished!

I decided to make it even more hearty by adding pasta but I didn't have any so I made some. It was a simple blend of semolina and all purpose flour. I used half and half. A pinch of salt and water was added until it was a workable dough. I didn't bother with recipe for this one.

When the dough was smooth after kneading I cut little pieces from ropes that I made. I don't think there's a name for this pasta shape so I'll call it Carolyn's Weird Tiny Pillows.

I cooked the pasta before adding them to the soup.

Now for the steamed South African bread made by a Canadian that doesn't know what they're doing.

I researched soooooo many recipes for "ujeke" and found that there were so many variations that my head was spinning. When I say variation, I mean that the ratio of flour to yeast, was different from recipe to recipe. I found that the amount of sugar and oil also varied. I found some that had carrot and parsley and some didn't.

At the end I made my own variation based on all of them. I opted to add carrots and parsley as well. This was not in @lizelle 's bread.

Canadian's ujeke experiment

3 plus more cups flour
2 tsp instant yeast
2 tbs cane sugar
70 g finely grated carrots
10 g parsley
1 tbs olive oil
2 1/2 c water

After putting all of the ingredients in the bowl I mixed the very sticky dough. Then dropped it on a floured mat. I kneaded it until it was smooth sprinkling flour as needed.

It felt pretty good as I put it in a greased bowl, covered and let it rise.

I was pleased after a couple of hours that it had risen at least double.

Now I had to find something to put it in so I chose a spring form cake pan, as someone had used in a video. Mine was a smaller one.

I put it in there and let it rise again.

It rose a little too high for the pan so I pulled it together at the top. Then I put it in an aluminum foil pan inside of a pot. This was not ideal. I have an electric steamer that I should have used.

I was lost at this point. I didn't know how to cover it so I chose a metal bowl and crossed my fingers.

After one hour it seemed to be firm so I took it out. It was not pretty. The top was indented. I had poked it and pulled pieces out of it throughout the cooking. I realized that it was more or less, a fail.

There was only one thing to do. Make garlic bread. A little garlic and vegan butter on the slices seared in a pan would fix it.

This was a fun try but I'm determined to keep doing it until it is nice and puffy and fluffy. It was on the stodgy side until I put it in the pan.

The idea of making bread over steam is really exciting. My oven temperature dial has no markings on it and there's no light to see the thermometer that I put in it so it's a pain to use the oven for baking bread. Plus it costs less than using the oven.

The soup reminded me of minestrone without the cheese. The bread was perfect for this on a horrible winter's day. I sound like a complaining ogre I know.

Even though this was not the perfect outcome for steamed bread, I was amazed by it all the same.

The bread was a lot like a giant dumpling. I like dumplings so it's okay. Anyway as much of a fail that it was, I learned something about a food eaten in a place so far away. I'm always interested in the food of other cultures.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day.

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