Sukuma wiki with ugali and eggs (Kenyan collard greens)
Kenya’s everyday dinner: collard greens cooked down with tomato and onion, scrambled with eggs and scooped up with firm, comforting ugali.
- 40 min total
- 30 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $1.57 a serving
- 450 calories
- Vegetarian
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 1 bunch collard greens
- 1½ cups cornmeal
- 1 yellow onion, diced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 3 Roma tomatoes, diced
- 1 vegetable bouillon cube
- 6 large eggs, beaten
From your pantry
- 3 cups water
- 2 tsp salt, divided
- 2 tbsp vegetable oil
- ½ tsp black pepper
Each serving has about 450 calories, 17 g protein, 59 g carbs and 16 g fat, and costs about $1.57 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Cut the thick stems out of the collards. Stack the leaves, roll them up tightly and across into thin ribbons.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Dolly’s tip: Rolling the stack like a cigar makes it easy to cut thin, even strips.For the ugali, bring the water and 1 teaspoon salt in a heavy . in ½ cup cornmeal until it looks like porridge, then turn the heat to medium-low.
Bring to a boil. It means heating a liquid on high until it’s fully boiling before you move on. A lid on the pot gets it there faster, which makes it a good moment to chop something.
How you’ll know: Big bubbles break all over the surface, and they keep coming when you lift the lid.
Saucepan. A saucepan is a pot with tall, straight sides and one long handle. It’s for things that need depth, like rice, sauces or a few boiled eggs.
How you’ll know: The food fills it about halfway, leaving room to bubble without spilling over.
Whisk. Whisking means beating quickly with a whisk or a fork to blend things together. It smooths out lumps and mixes eggs, oil or sauces evenly.
How you’ll know: It all looks one even color and texture, with no streaks or lumps.
Medium heat
Add the rest of the cornmeal a little at a time, stirring hard with a wooden spoon.
Low heat
Keep pressing and folding it against the pot until it’s very thick and pulls away from the sides, 8 to 10 minutes.
Low heatTimer: 9 min
Dolly’s tip: It gets heavy and hard to stir. That’s right: ugali should hold its shape like a firm mash.Cover and keep warm.
Heat the oil in a large over medium heat and cook the onion until soft, 5 minutes. Add the garlic, tomatoes, bouillon and pepper and cook until the tomatoes break down, 4 minutes.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Crumble. Crumbling means breaking food into small, rough bits with your fingers or a spoon, like feta or ground meat in the pan. Small bits spread through the dish, so there’s some in every bite.
How you’ll know: The pieces are small and uneven, about pea-size, with no big clumps left.
Medium heatTimer: 9 min
Add the collards, of water and ½ teaspoon salt. Cook, stirring, until tender and dark green, 6 to 8 minutes.
Splash. A splash is a small, quick pour, about a teaspoon to a tablespoon. It’s there to loosen or brighten a dish, so the exact amount doesn’t matter.
How you’ll know: The dish looks a little looser or tastes a little brighter, not soupy.
Medium heatTimer: 7 min
Push the greens to one side, pour the eggs into the empty space with the last ½ teaspoon salt and scramble until set, about 2 minutes. Stir everything together.
Medium heatTimer: 2 min
Food safety: For the safest eggs, cook until the whites are fully set and the yolks begin to thicken. Dishes made with eggs are done at 160°F.
Scoop the ugali onto plates and serve the greens alongside. off pieces of ugali with your fingers to scoop up the greens, the Kenyan way.
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
More dinners like this
Egg salad sandwiches
40 min
Shiro wat
40 min
Sheet pan fried rice
45 min
West African–style peanut stew with sweet potatoes
45 min
Vegetarian dinners ›Pantry dinners ›What to make with eggs and tomatoes ›