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Maasa and mayhem ?

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    So Lily and I are back to our culinary travels of our DNA destinations. She has three percent DNA from the African country of Mali. I of course knew nothing about this country so we had to do a little research. It is a land locked country in the north west section of Africa. Algeria is to the North, Niger to the East, Guinea to the South and Senegal and Mauritania to the West. I must admit a couple of countries near Mali I haven't heard of. Since my geography lessons many years ago it seems that many of the countries have changed names.
      With the research I found out that there is a lot strife in the area at this time. Warring factions trying to gain control of areas and killing and displacing hundreds of thousands of people. It sort of disturbs me that I didn't know about this. I haven't seen anything on our news channels about this. This is not a political blog so I'll only say that I am glad to live in a country where our warring takes place in the nightly news and not on the street. We still have the power struggles going on here, but instead of shooting each other we try to win public support by way of TV and the news. I wonder with the nightly news so engrossed in the local power struggles, is there is to time to devote to the rest of the world?
     I did find a recipe from the region that I wanted to try. Maasa  The largest grain crops from the area are Millet and Brown Rice. This recipe has both and it is like a doughnut, bread and pancake cross. My research says that in Mali this is a roadside staple. It is made a lot like you would make pancakes. The dough has yeast in it and made the cake or bread seem doughy on the inside yet crisp on the outside. This was exactly what the recipe said it should be. I will probably adjust the consistency of the dough when making it in the future to make it less "doughy". Using brown rice flour and millet flour make this "gluten free" so if you need a gluten free option this would work for you. The recipe is from food52.com. We ate ours with just a little powdered sugar added but I could see it with a fruity syrup.

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