Zanzibar pizza

Zanzibar pizza does not have much in common with Italian pizza. It is made unleavened dough that is stretched thin and filled with various ingredients.

This  dogh pie is more like a mash-up of a crepe and savory pancake, these tasty fried pockets of dough house a dizzying array of fillings—from avocado with squid to lobster with cheese and with banana.

Zanzibar pizza is similar to Nairobi’s mkate wa nyama (meat bread), or the stuffed grilled pancakes (mutabbaq) made in Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Yemen, and India. But what makes a Zanzibar pizza unique are its local sauce, its meshing of styles, and its playful stuffing combinations.

A  Zanzibar pizza begins as a small ball of dough that is thinned out then piled with your choice of ingredients (such as chicken or beef) followed by onion, capsicum, an egg, a triangle of Happy Cow cheese, a dollop of mayonnaise, and chilli sauce (if you like it hot). The corners are then folded in to make a square, and the whole thing goes in the frypan. When the base is crispy, it’s flipped, then sliced into bite-sized squares, scooped onto a plate and served with a toothpick ‘fork’. Bliss!