Tanzanian French Fry Omelette: Chipsi Mayai

Tanzania is a country in eastern Africa. The region was part of the former German colony of German East Africa, and Britain took control of the area upon Germany's defeat in World War One. The British used the name "Tanganyika" as the name for their mainland colony, while the various islands of Zanzibar were a separate British colony. Independence was granted to each of these colonies in the first part of the 1960s, and the two entities joined together as Tanzania in 1964. Swahili is the main language, but English is known to some degree by many, and it is more commonly used in business circles. While Christianity is in the majority among Tanzanians, Islam is a large minority religion, especially on Zanzibar, which therefore also brings Arabic in as a minority language.      

 

"Chipsi mayai" (pronounced like "chipsee mah-yeye," like 'eye') also known as '"zege" (pronounced 'zay-geh') in part of Tanzania, primarily on the island Zanzibar. This is super easy to make, although some Tanzanians make a more elaborate omelette by adding ingredients like bell pepper, tomatoes, chilies and parsley to it. You can certainly buy some already cooked french fries from your neighborhood fast food outlet, or you can buy frozen french fries, or you can cut up some potatoes and make the fries yourself, the way you like them.  

 

Serve with tomato sauce or ketchup and with a tomato/onion salad (called kachumbari, which often also has some cucumber). If you like hot sauce instead of tomato sauce or ketchup ... GO FOT IT!

 

Ingredients (4 servings):

 

4 large eggs, beaten

1 cup chopped onion

2 potatoes, peeled and cut into fries (British: chips)  

oil for frying

 

Fry the potatoes in a skillet according to your preference (raw or frozen potatoes fried in some particular amount of oil), but then remove the potatoes to a dish and pour off all but a couple of tablespoons of oil. Of course, if you have already bought fries/chips from a restaurant, you won't have to worry about this step, and you can just set the fries aside briefly. Over medium heat, saute the onion until it is soft and lightly browned. Add the cooked potatoes to the skillet and distribute the onions and potatoes evenly over the skillet. Pour in the beaten eggs, again trying to distribute the eggs over the entire skillet. Fry the omelette until lightly browned on the bottom, then (this is the tricky part) flip the omelette to the other side and fry until it is browned. (NOTE: It's best to place a plate over the top of the skillet, then turn the skillet over to turn the omelette out onto the plate. This with leave the cooked part face up on the plate, and the uncooked part will now be on the bottom, although it shouldn't be terribly runny by this point. Then slide the omelette back into the skillet from the plate for the uncooked underside to fully cook and brown. If you have a wide spatula you can likely just turn the omelette over using it.)

WORD HISTORY:

Suave-This adjective is distantly related, through Indo European, to "sweet," a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "suwad," which had the notion of "pleasant tasting." This gave Latin "suavis," meaning "pleasant tasting, delightful, sweet," later also used figuratively as, "agreeable, kindly, pleasant." English borrowed the word from Latin as "suave" in the first quarter of the 1400s meaning "kindly, pleasant, gracious," and later also, "smooth in style, sophisticated."