 Hi there. I am so excited to be here in the I-House kitchen and bringing you, our I-House supporters, a cooking demonstration with Tsukurai Minya, the owner of Zim Cuisine. Zim Cuisine is a black-owned small food business right here in the city of Davis. They offer farm-to-fork gourmet food inspired by Zimbabwean cuisine. Their offerings are made from fresh organic vegetables, sourced from local farmers, and slow-grilled meats cooked to perfection with gluten-free sides. You can find them at the Davis Farmers Market on Wednesdays from 3 to 6 p.m. and head to their website or head to their website to inquire about catering. Tsukurai is one of the husband and wife team owners. She will demonstrate how to make sardza, which is a staple food of Zimbabwe, and peanut butter mustard greens, my favorite, which is her most popular veggie served at Farmers Market. Well, welcome to the Zim Cuisine kitchen. Thank you International House for allowing us to be here. As Shelley introduced us really well, I am Tsukurai of Zim Cuisine. And for today, I'm going to make sardza and peanut butter mustard greens, and Shelley is going to help me. So if you're at home, you can cook with us. The good thing about this is it's going to be recorded so you can go back and play it. What you need is some cornmeal, white uncooked cornmeal. You can find this at the grocery store. It might be called corn masa, but the biggest thing is don't use the pre-cooked. You need to use the uncooked. And then we have any of your favorite greens. You really could use spinach. You could use, like today I have curly kale. I use a lot of mustard greens because they're bitter, but today I'm going to use kale. So you really can use whatever vegetable you enjoy. But green veggies are the best because they really absorb the flavor better. And then some one chopped onion. So over here I have two bunches of greens. So one chopped onion for two bunches of greens. So if you're doing a one bunch of greens, then you only need half an onion. And then one small tomato. It's really important for you to have tomatoes and not tomato sauce or tomato puree, and you'll see why later. And then our favorite ingredient that people are mostly scared about jalapenos. This is not a spicy recipe, even though it looks like it with jalapenos. Don't be afraid to use the jalapenos because we're putting peanut butter in this. It's going to be, it's going to mellow everything out. It'll be great. So we have peanut butter. I'm not going to use all of this. I'm going to use just a couple of spoons because we're not doing too much. And a bowl, which we're going to use for hot water. Thank you for boiling the water, Shelley. So have your hot water boiling while you pick up your ingredients. And then we have some cooking oil. I do prefer olive oil myself, but we will use regular cooking oil for the demonstration. And just some black pepper and salt. So you can use any of the spoons you want for the mustard greens. And you make the salsa, which is really the hardest dish to make, which is simple because it's only the cornmeal water, but it's just the process is hard. You need a flat wooden stick. So we call this a mukoti in our culture in Zimbabwe. You will find this sold on every street. Okay, so let's get cooking. The water is boiling. It's boiling. So we just switch on the green pot. Should I get this first or switch on the green pot? Okay, switch on the green pot and then once the water is boiled, we'll get it. And we can move over to the stove. So we'll start with the greens while they're simmering. Then we'll do the salsa. It's because salsa is usually served fresh and piping hot to where like you have to dip your fingers and it's super hot. And then the greens really need to sit. So if you cook them, they're good like a few hours later after simmering or even the next day. So I'm going to put, you know, African measuring. We never use measuring cups. So I'll put half a cup of cooking oil. You don't need much. And in fact, if you don't want to use any oil at all, you don't have to. So just for those that are really sensitive about oil. Shelly, did you pass me some onions and tomatoes and jalapenos? And for the salsa, you'll see why we need a pot like this because it's hot. I need to be able to handle the pot. So I need some distance to mix it and I'll show you. So if you have just like a little bit of a deep pot, it'll work. Even if it's a handle like this, it'll still work. So don't worry about it. I actually had to bring this pot from Zimbabwe because you can really only find these pots in Southern Africa or in other parts of Africa. And so we're going to wait for oil. We need to make sure it's hot. So I just put an onion to tell me whether it's hot. And you can start on medium-high. This is good. And can you pass me a wooden stick? The smaller one. What's it called again? The other one is called a mugoti. This is just a wooden stick. All right. So tell me a little bit about the IFEST this year. What do we have to look forward to? What are we watching? We will be watching over 20 different performances. Some of them filmed here at I-House. Some of them sent in pre-recordings. All Black, Indigenous, people of color, communities, and cultures that we're featuring at IFEST this year. I'm shameless-planned. My kids are going to be in there. I'm from many vibes. I may be biased, but they're the cutest kids out there. I may be biased too because I'm the cutest kid out there. Okay. So it's almost ready. So this is a super easy dish to make, especially when you have company. We use it as a side, so we'll have our sides out. We'll have the greens. If you're vegetarian, you can eat it like that. This is actually gluten-free and vegan. So you can enjoy it if you have those allergies. And we always make it with a stew on the side as well. If you eat meat, you can make it with a beef stew, or you know, chicken stew, ghost stew. We eat every animal you can think of that you can find. So oil is nice and hot, so you can come closer and see. And then we're going to stir it until it's almost brown. Then I have some salt and the greens. I'm going to sprinkle some salt. Like I said, African measuring. Please do put salt because peanut butter is really sweet and this is a savory dish. So if you don't put jalapenos or salt, it will not be savory. Again, jalapenos are optional, but they really, for me, blend the sweet and salty together in a perfect way. Then I wait for these to graph. So we've got our water boiled. I'm going to saute the onions, add tomatoes, add jalapenos, and then I'm going to add the veggies and then boil it and then start working on the saza. So we're going to need two cups of boiled water. The first one is for the veggies. And the second one is for the saza. So something interesting about saza is that in our African culture, saza is the test to the daughter-in-law. So when somebody is getting married, the biggest test is they give them the biggest part of saza to make. And if they make a really big pot, then people in the other family feel very confident that she'll be able to feed them. So it's actually a hilarious test because many of us don't pass it. Because when you get married, you go to the village to visit like his grandparents. And a lot of people aren't used to cooking on the fire. And like, you know, if you live in the city like me, you're used to a pot like this. And then during the test, it's a pot like this, sometimes an actual drum. If there's like 100 people at the ceremony. So you can imagine asking a city girl like me to cook in a big drum. So our onions are nice and brown. We'll add our jalapenos. I make a jalapeno and onion and lemon salad. The tomato is a simple salad, but it's actually really good with fish. So maybe that'll be a cooking class the next time. Yeah. And now I am going to add some tomatoes. Kind of see the mixture. Make sure your combination looks just like this. So we're going to add some black pepper. And if you don't mind, I'm going to ask you to start scooping some peanut butter into that black bowl. Okay. How about those black spoons? Like five of those black spoons? Okay. And the water is boiling. Okay. Black pepper. Can you tell? The greens. So the funny thing about greens is you just shred them really thin like you did here. I did. So the pan is stationary. So you can load up the pan. Like even though it looks like you put too much, you can probably keep going. And then we'll be fine. So for zimpuzine, we cook like, like to do things from scratch. And that's our philosophy. And so honestly, to make sauteed greens, you can really just enjoy this like this. So if you have peanut butter allergies, you can use sun butter. Or you can really just enjoy the greens just like this. See how I keep turning it? I'm going to mix in the tomatoes and onions. And then I am going to add water. Can I have some of that boiling water? I'm going to add about, you can pour it in for me. I'm going to add about, you're going to estimate it like me. But keep going. Is that two cups of green? I don't know. So it should be like this. A little more so because I want my greens to be nice and tender at the end. So I guess we'll be fine. So let's make that three cups of water. Okay. Yeah. And so while this is boiling, I'm going to prepare the peanut butter. We still need that boiling water and I'll show you. You're going to leave it here? No, I'm going to mix it right here. So I'm going to turn down my stove, which I have to know. And make sure these are simmering. And we're going to add peanut butter. And then make it simmer. So that's me. So I add boiling hot water to kind of melt the peanut butter. Just make it easier to put in. And I just mix it. If you want, you could, do you want to do that? Or do you want to do it next time? If you want. That's all I'm going to do. Yeah. That's all. Then you can mix that. And then I'm going to start with the saza in a little bit. So with the saza is two ingredients, cornmeal and water. It's simple. It's just hard to make. So stay tuned to get a drink while we go get the ingredients in saza. So for the saza we're boiling water, but we're going to mix in cold first. It's really important to mix in the cold saza first. I'm going to do two one-third cups for this pot. It depends how big your pot is, but two one-third cups is enough. I'm going to add in a cup of cold water to make a paste. The hardest thing is to not have like the cornmeal have bubbles. So that's why we do that. So since there's three of us here, I think I might add another third cup. So this base really depends on how many people you're cooking for. If it's just myself, then that initial one-third cup is fine. Do you smell those greens? I think this peanut butter is pretty well mixed. Okay. I'll just leave it there. Should I put it in? Not yet. Okay, so your paste should look like this. So it really doesn't matter exactly how many cups of cold water you put. It just needs to look like a paste. So you need enough in there to look like a paste. So like I said, it depends on how many people you're cooking for. And I'm going to check those greens. They should be brown. So what I want is for them to be tender before I add the peanut butter. So they still need more boiling. That's why we're going to start with the saza. So is the saza water boiled? Mm-hmm. Okay. So while this is still boiling, and you can lower it because that's pretty high. So if I see that my water is low, I can top up the water a little bit, but this is fine. But let's say while I'm making the saza and I see that the water level is low, I just add a little bit of water just to make sure it's really, really boiled. So we're going to switch on the saza. Like I said, this is a hot dish. So I switch it on high. And I have the paste. So can I have the boiling water? I'm going to add, I'll just do it. I'm going to add the boiling water. Like I said, it's really hard to measure because we never use measuring sticks. So let's say, I would say one is to one quarter, one is to four of water. If you had put one cup of water on the paste, then I'd say you put four cups of boiling water. Okay. So you want it to be a thinner paste. It's going to thicken up really fast. You're going to see. And what you want to do is keep mixing it because it's going to start boiling. And it's sometimes like a really messy job because the stove is always messy at the end of it. So you really need somebody else to be on dish washing too, when you're making this. So once it starts boiling like this, I put my lid and I leave it a little bit open because I want the air to escape. I check my greens. Almost ready. You're almost ready for that peanut butter. You hear that? That's the sound you want and that's the look you want. It has to boil like that. If it gets too thick, feel free to add more water, more hot water though, not cold water because you don't want it too thick. See like mine is getting a little thick, a little too thick. Then I want to add a little bit more water. I want it to keep simmering, but I don't want it to get into a paste yet. So like I said, always have this thing of boiled water right by you because you kind of need to look at how it looks. Because when you start off it looks thin, but it gets thick really fast. Should I boil some more? No, I think this is good. I'm going to leave it. So you want it to simmer just like that. In Zimbabwe it's called Quata. So we have to make sure your Salzarapura Quata, which means you've got to make sure it boils enough before you start mixing in some more. Okay, so now our greens look like they're ready for peanut butter. So shall we put in how many? Three? Black scoops? So like I said, it depends how much peanut butter. So I'm not going to use all of this. I'm going to put two large spoons because I don't have that much veggies. So I put two tablespoons full of peanut butter mixed with water. I'm just going to mix it up, mix the paste. You see how messy it is? The Salzarapura. That's probably why they do it outside. You usually need to give AC on too because it's hot. AC is hot. Especially when you're at home making Salzarapura. Some people don't make it in the summer because it's such a hot dish. So you see how in my peanut veggies it's all super liquid? So you're going to thicken up pretty fast because peanut butter thickens up pretty fast. Just make sure you've really crushed all the lumps of peanut butter. You can smell it through my back. It smells so good. That's great. And remember we're at Farmer's Market on Wednesday nights from three to six. And you can go on Zimquazine.com to look up our weekly menu and pre-order. And you can just call us too and just let us know if you're having a birthday or a small event, county permitted. We can cater, we can drop off into go boxes if people are picking up to go. And you definitely want to come to the Farmer's Market and have a picnic and buy some veggies. So I'm going to lower this even more so it's simmering. That's why I like this pot because it can really simmer without burning it. Okay, now comes the hard part. So Sanzarero da Quarte which means that our saza has reached that point where you can start mixing it in. This is the dangerous part. So since it's mixed like this, you start adding scoops of cornmeal at a time. So as you can see, you see why I need a large stick to mix it in. Because I'm trying to break all these bubbles. I know when you see it cooked, it looks super easy like mashed potatoes. But it's not as easy to make. So here I am crushing as much of these bubbles as possible. You need to crush it, or these lumps, you need to crush it quickly because as your saza is forming, it gets harder to crush these lumps. Some people even believe you can only mix it in one direction too. Which I kind of never mix it in the other direction, but I've never tried. And I really don't know if it makes a difference in how it tastes. And can you stir the peanut veggies for me? Because when the peanut butter is sticky, it starts to get hot. So you see how I keep adding? You get against the wall of the pot. Now you see why we need these pots with these handles. Because we really need to crush that cornmeal. This smells so good. And this is probably my last one. So you can make it as thick or as thin as you want. So fun fact, this is how you make porridge. You know how we ended at the bubbles? To make porridge, you just put a little bit more cornmeal and you let it bubble. And put peanut butter. So kids in the pub would eat porridge every day for breakfast. So really basic, I mean if people can eat cereal. But the basic breakfast everywhere that is most affordable is porridge. And it's basically this first stage of salmon. With sugar, salt and peanut butter. Or sugar, salt and butter. Some people don't like to simmer. You can hear it's kind of tired. It's great that we have all these analogies for food. And the temperament. And literally the translation to what this is. You're tired from stirring it. Oh, that's like four times as big. And we have two of them. So we make two of those big pots. Because people really like the market. And you just let it simmer. We'll get a glass of wine and get your dinner ready. And we'll be back to do, I guess, the taste test. So venture, which is Tessa Foundation. Tessa Foundation is basically my giving back to the country and the community. That gave me. It's a nonprofit that we're based in Davis. And our board is in Davis. And basically we sponsored Girls in Zimbabwe to go to school. Because I grew up in Zimbabwe. I have first hand experience of what it's like to not have tuition. Because tuition is not free. And I was, like I said, I grew up in the city. So you can imagine what life is like for girls in the village. They have no option but to get married early. And so for us to really tackle this problem, I wanted to make sure that we have a sustainable way of doing it. And so our approach is, like our center is girls' education. But we realize we can't say we're supporting girls without supporting the rest of the family. So if you go on our website to see us doing projects, like helping a family build a home. Because we realize we can't talk about education without helping the rest of the family. We can't talk about keeping a girl in school when she hasn't, which doesn't have clothes. She doesn't have a house. So we're really trying to build a whole family, but our focus is a girl child. And what we've seen is the whole family is supportive of our foundation because they see the value. So even though they're saying, we're here to support your daughter, we're supporting the whole family, buying them crushes. Like we have families that lost their legs to diabetes and they didn't have crutches. We help with that. So we've seen our girls succeed, one of them even got an offer to UC Davis. So we're seeing a lot of really positive change. Yeah. We need supporters. You know, during COVID, it's been hard for the entire world, but it's really hard for Africa because it relies on funding from the US and UK and all the Western countries. And everybody's been hit hard here, and it really affects their, you know, countries where they're relying on the aid. So if anything, my philosophy is give local, give local as well. So that's always been my thing. Like always make sure you're doing something locally and locally. So if you're giving to, let's say your local leaders or your local candidates, make sure you're giving to international as well. So yeah, awesome. And we usually have a huge tea on November 4th, which this year we're going to maybe turn it into a telephone, where people call in and donate and we'll just make it a very safe way of fundraising. And it's always safe and fun. So yeah. Well, thank you for all you do for our community here in Davis, for providing us with your amazing food and for what you do for Zimbabwe and girls and for education and everything and your partnership with us. First, I'm going to check and make sure my greens are really well cooked and softened because that's the biggest part, is they need to have really simmered well. I'm going to taste them. I'm not the only way I know how to. What I'm testing for is if my greens are soft yet. So I'm going to take another bowl to serve the salsa and I'll put cold water because the salsa is really hard. It's really hot. And you need kind of like a scoop like this. So I'm going to dip the scoop in water. I'm going to scoop a large thing of salsa. And I'm going to plate it. I'm going to do the same. I hope everybody else, even behind the camera, will get to enjoy and serve. Like I said, it's meant to be served piping hot. Like I said, it's a very popular dish you can make at home, company. The sauce is a secret. You really want to make sure you have some sauce there to enjoy it with. So this is the answer. Okay, so I know you brought the forts, but if we're going to do that, you have to eat it with your hands. Okay, so now we have our salsa with mustard greens. Actually, I'm saying mustard greens, but today I used kale, curly kale. So salsa with peanut butter greens. Okay, so shall we put that some food? It needs to be piping hot. Okay. And that's part of the enjoyment. I think also because it just is, it's so food. So when it goes down your throat, just kind of feels warm, kind of like when you eat mashed potatoes. So you, you pluck a piece from the edge. Okay. So for the little kids, it is very hot. So for the little kids, we, we, or you know, the new, new beginners, you could leave it out. Yeah. For the little kids and for me. Sorry. Beginner salsa it is. So one cool thing is one day he comes to the farmers market and actually buys like 10 or 15 of these because we wrap them in plastic. And she goes home and freezes them so that she can eat it a couple days later. She also eats it for breakfast. Okay. So for the salsa, you scoop the peanut greens, which are also blazing hot. Dinner is covered. Dinner is served. It's so delicious. If you want a little bit more salt or, you know, if it's fine, you just enjoy. Thank you for watching and I hope to see you all soon.