Djibouti is a small country located on the horn of Africa. Its cuisine doesn't differ too much from that of surrounding countries Somalia and Ethiopia. One popular dish, however, is called fah-fah, also known as Djibouti soup or soupe djiboutienne.
Fah-fah is made with lots of fresh vegetables: onion, tomato, pepper, leeks, potato, garlic, cabbage, and cilantro.
All the veggies are chopped up and thrown into a big pot of water to start the stew.
I prefer to start soups and stews with cooked onions, so I tossed all the leeks and onions into my pot and sauteed them a bit before adding all the rest of the ingredients.
So many vegetables. All the veggies are covered with water. I used vegetable broth since I wasn't using real meat to flavor the water.
Once the vegetables had cooked down into a stew, I added my "meat." In Djibouti, various meats can be used for fah-fah, including mutton, goat, and even camel. I used seitan. The reason for waiting until the end is that seitan actually becomes quite rubbery when it's cooked in a liquid like a soup.
Even though the stew was hearty enough on its own with lots of vegetables and a protein, I felt it was lacking some kind of starch on the side. So after googling around a bit, I found sabaayad. Sabaayad is a type of flatbread eaten in both Djibouti and Somalia. It begins with flour and salt, then olive oil and honey, then a bit of water until it turns into something resembling a pizza dough. The dough is kneaded until soft, then rests for 30 minutes.
Once rested, the dough is divided into equal pieces (I only made enough for four), then each rolled out into what is supposed to be a circle. Fear not, because in the next step you get rid of that "circle."
The top of the dough is brushed with oil, then the edges are folded toward the middle to create a square.
After heating up a skillet, the dough is then rolled out once more into a circle--this time it has to come closer to a circle in order to fit into a skillet.
The bread is cooked one or two minutes on each side until it's slightly puffy and golden brown.
Like naan or pita, the bread can stand alone, but is wonderful when used to scoop and sop up soup and other foods.
The soup itself was really flavorful and filling. I'm a sucker for a good veggie soup, and the fah-fah definitely hit the spot. I'll be making the sabaayad again I'm sure--it was super easy and had a great texture and flavor.
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