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Zimbabwean recipe

How to make Chimodho (cornmeal bread)

chimodho, mupotohayi

All of Zimbabwe

Chimodho (cornmeal bread)
Photo: ThereMazo, CC BY-SA 4.0

A dense, slightly sweet loaf made from maize meal and flour with sour milk. Traditionally it was baked in a three-legged iron pot over hot coals; today it is usually baked in the oven and eaten plain or with butter, jam or honey at teatime.

Serves 10 1 h

Ingredients

  • 180 g fine maize meal
  • 170 g plain flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 100 g sugar
  • 250 ml buttermilk or sour milk
  • 90 ml vegetable oil
  • 1 egg

Method

  1. Heat the oven to 180°C and grease and flour a loaf tin.
  2. Whisk the buttermilk, oil and egg together in a jug.
  3. Sift the maize meal, flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and salt into a bowl and stir in the sugar.
  4. Pour the wet mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth.
  5. Pour into the tin and bake for about 45 minutes, until a skewer pushed into the middle comes out clean. Cool a little before slicing.
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