Flaky ugali? Here's where you are going wrong

Ugali is considered to be a staple meal in most Kenyan homes.

The majority of the people usually have ugali on daily basis, making them possess the prowess of preparing the meal.

On the other hand, the majority of those that do not prepare their own ugali, find the process challenging as they end up having a flaky end product even after spending several minutes preparing the meal.

Various people have different ways of preparing ugali, these mostly depend on if one wants a soft or firm one.

There are those who usually stir some maize flour in cold water first, then place the mixture on a heat source, preferably at medium heat.

After the mixture simmers, they add some flour then mix in order to have a semi-hard meal.

Then there are others who are accustomed to letting the water heat to a boiling point, then gradually add maize flour while stirring.

Depending on the number of servings one wants, they need to ensure that the amount of flour they add doesn't overpower the amount of water in the cooking pot.

By this I mean, one needs to ensure that they do not put a lot of flour in the sufuria as this is going to result in a lot of uncooked flour that is not properly mixed with the water at the bottom of the sufuria and in between the meal.

Having excess flour leads to the ugali either having bits of lumps within, or it being overly flaky even after mixing it.

The process of mixing the flour with water also determines whether one is going to attain a well-done ugali, or have a flaky one.

While mixing, one needs to ensure that they add the flour to water in bits and not just pour the entire pack in the boiling water.

It is also advisable to let the flour boil a little after adding it to water before you start stirring. This ensures that no flour is left unmixed and your meal is well cooked.

In the event of your ugali having flaky flour remnants before you remove it from heat, pour some hot water over it and mix gradually.

This is the best way to save your ugali from being flaky to being tasty.