Home is Wherever My Mother Is

For me, home is wherever my mother is. I talk about the places I want to be and where it most feels like home to me, and it's always wherever she is. You know as long as I'm close by and she's with me, that for me feels like home.

Growing up in Oslo, Norway, I was surrounded by different cultures and flavors. My family settled in Oslo after a move out of the US, and our Somali heritage became a big part of my life. Our kitchen was always filled with the aroma of turmeric and cumin, which added a bright orange-yellow color to our dishes. The turmeric gives our sugar a very warm flavor, and I love it.

While cooking for my family, I would often help my mother prepare traditional Somali dishes. One of her favorite recipes is a stir-fry made with beef, green peppers, and spices. She would cook the beef and add in sliced bell peppers, which are commonly used in Somalian cuisine. The dish was always flavorful and filling, and it became one of my favorites as well.

For me, cooking is not just about following a recipe; it's about sharing stories and traditions with my family and friends. I love experimenting with new ingredients and flavors, but there's something special about cooking traditional Somali dishes that feels like home.

One day, while researching for a cookbook, I realized how much variety there is within Somali cuisine. While some families have their own unique twists on traditional recipes, others stick closely to the original methods. I wanted to explore this diversity and share it with the world.

As I delved deeper into my heritage, I learned that cooking is not just about food; it's about community and tradition. In Somalia, meals are often shared with family and friends, and the act of cooking is a way of showing love and respect. This is something that I want to share with others through my cooking.

If you had to eat one dish for the rest of your life, what would it be? For me, it's definitely gołąbki, a traditional Polish dish that my mother used to make for me when I was growing up. The combination of tender cabbage rolls and flavorful sauce is something that I never tire of.

Cooking for me is a way of showing love and appreciation for the people in my life. It's a language that speaks directly to the heart, and it's something that I want to share with others. Whether we're sitting around the table or sharing stories over social media, food has the power to bring us together.

One day, while cooking, I realized how much I had learned from my mother. She taught me about the importance of patience, tradition, and community in cooking. Her recipes are not just a list of ingredients; they're a way of passing down stories and memories from one generation to the next.

As I looked at the finished dish, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. The stir-fry was complete, and it smelled like my mother's kitchen. I added a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkle of cilantro, just as she would have done.

The beauty of Somali cuisine lies in its simplicity and diversity. From the spices used to the ingredients chosen, every detail is a reflection of the culture and traditions that come before it. As I continued to cook and explore my heritage, I realized that food has the power to bridge gaps between cultures and communities.

In our neighboring countries like Eritrea and Ethiopia, the heat from chilies is often added directly to fruit and other dishes. This gives a unique flavor profile that is distinct from many Western cuisines. While cooking for me may involve adding heat to taste, I also appreciate the tradition of using spices to bring out the natural flavors in ingredients.

As I sat down to enjoy my stir-fry, I couldn't help but think about the conversations that had been told about where I came from. For a long time, I felt like my Somali heritage was something that needed to be explained or justified, rather than simply accepted as part of who I am. But researching for this cookbook has shown me that there's more to it than just a single story.

Africa is not a country, nor are cuisines monolithic. Every culture has its own unique flavors and traditions, shaped by history, geography, and community. As I explored the world of Somali cuisine, I realized that food is not just about sustenance; it's about connection, tradition, and storytelling.

The Solar on a Bed of Lettuce

One of my favorite dishes to make is a simple stir-fry made with beef, green peppers, and spices. It's a classic Somalian recipe that's easy to prepare and always flavorful. To make it, I sauté sliced beef in a pan until it's browned, then add in sliced bell peppers and cook until they're tender-crisp. The dish is seasoned with a blend of spices, including turmeric, cumin, and coriander.

As I cooked the stir-fry, I couldn't help but think about the importance of community in Somali cuisine. In Somalia, meals are often shared with family and friends, and the act of cooking is a way of showing love and respect. This tradition extends beyond the kitchen to include sharing food with neighbors and strangers alike.

The beauty of this dish lies in its simplicity and versatility. The beef and peppers can be replaced with other ingredients, such as chicken or tofu, making it accessible to a wide range of dietary needs. The spices used add a unique flavor profile that's distinct from many Western cuisines.

One day, while cooking, I realized how much I had learned from my mother. She taught me about the importance of patience, tradition, and community in cooking. Her recipes are not just a list of ingredients; they're a way of passing down stories and memories from one generation to the next.

As I looked at the finished dish, I couldn't help but feel a sense of pride and accomplishment. The stir-fry was complete, and it smelled like my mother's kitchen. I added a squeeze of lime juice and a sprinkle of cilantro, just as she would have done.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enthe real story of global culinary tradition can be found in the kitchens of everyday women cooking for their families so much so that i wrote a book about it featuring grandmothers from different african countries sharing traditional recipes from their homeland now i want to share my take on some of these classic african dishes for you to enjoy welcome to hawa at home hi everyone i'm hala hassan and today i'm going to be making one of my favorite meals i'm going to be making beef squad which is a somali stir fry it's my mother's recipe it's in my cookbook in bibi's kitchen this dish is traditionally made with goat i'm not gonna make it with goat today i'm gonna go ahead and use what i have at home we have this thing in somalia called chekosheko which means like there's a lot of conversation happening and shikoshiko usually takes place over tea so for me commotion feels like home so i'm looking for maybe a chuck steak to cut up into small chunks to put in my stew but also the smell of hawaj the smell of cinnamon the smell of angelo burning in the morning which is our angera and this is a beef chuck steak what makes it really special is how fast it comes together it's under 10 ingredients and can be done in less than 20 minutes literally what we're doing we're cutting small chunks of beef into little cubes this is a dish that is near and dear to my heart i grew up eating it it's my mother's favorite all of my sisters learned it from our mother with beef sugar you want to be sure that you buy your own beef you'll often see pre-cut stew meat you don't want to use that you want to get your own cut so that you can make sure everything is cut in the same size so that it cooks evenly i'm using about a pound and a half but i'll take two pounds the great thing about going to the butcher to get your meat is that you can first of all select your meat and then you can customize it to yourself so i love to come here i love to be able to get a whole um a whole cut of a steak and then do the the chunks myself and so i love doing that on my own i love coming here for the new zealand lamb i just also you know how fresh the meat is as opposed to the supermarket so i really encourage if you've got a great great butcher by you make friends with the guys and the gals there turn this to high medium heat now that i've got my heat on i'm just gonna get some canola oil i'll use about two tablespoons you can tell our oil is hot and our skillet is ready i'll throw in our beef i'm just gonna give it a large pinch of salt i want to make sure that it browns evenly i'm going to go ahead and get my yellow onion i'm using a yellow onion again because this is what this dish calls for tamales they have a whole thing about not trusting people who don't cook with red onion it's just sweeter in flavor this is my mother's recipe and i don't take any liberties with her stuff otherwise i won't hear the end in somali culture we say paradise is at the feeder of our mom what she says goes and she said a yellow onion so here we are i'm gonna give this a chop almost the same size as my meat all right bring this all together so i want to let this come together until my onions begin to soften in the meantime i've got some carrots that are peeled i cook with ton of carrots and so carrots are a staple in my refrigerator so many different ways you can cook carrots and an easy easy way to add some vegetables to your cooking i'm gonna cut them into coin-sized pieces this will help the carrots cook fast and evenly and you know what vegetables can vary so use one that you like cut them in the same size so that they cook evenly this is a traditional somali recipe every family has their own version of beef sugar a lot of somalis use you know flavors of the indian ocean so we use ton of turmeric in our cooking lots of cinnamon lots of cardamom here today we're using turmeric and cumin but you know there are some families that use a spice called hawaj which consists of many warm and savory spices here's my favorite hau waj this is also another great place that has a hawaii that's pre-made and is really reflective of the one we use in somalia somalia has the longest coast inland um we are heavily influenced by the yemen's the italians we are really lucky in that we're right there on the indian spice trade so a lot of our food is reflective of that you know cardamom cumin cinnamon cloves turmeric those are all flavors that are heavy in our everyday foods all right give this a stir my intentions are to not only showcase but to teach people that cooking from the continent is really about your pantry and everything you need is already there yeah i think when i'm creating a recipe i'm going for smell i'm going for taste and then i'm also going for tradition and that comes from conversations with my mom and so you know i have i have a recipe that i make called loho which is somali pancakes and i make mine a bit more savory it's literally like a crepe and so i've made mines with onion cloves vinegary and some people would say that's not somali but it's my version of lojo all right our onions are beginning to break down the beef is almost completely brown it's new old it's my memories it's traditions from my family and then it's an interpretation of the way i see the recipe you can create recipes that are from your cultural background but then you can tailor them for your audience and for your life you want to be sure not to overcook your beef this recipe really takes no time to cook so just keep an eye on it i'm throwing in my carrots and carrots are a big part of our meals i want my carrots to get a little tender about five minutes or so and then i'll add our seasoning while this takes place i'm gonna straighten up a little bit and for good measure i'm gonna use just a little bit more salt somalis are from the horn of africa like myself but we're on the indian ocean which means we benefit from the spice trade and today we'll see some of that show up in here in the 90s somalia was experiencing a civil war and my family like most other families fled to nairobi in kenya where i spent four years and then my family stayed for a long time but in that i was sent to seattle with a family friend for me started then the cycle of having to figure it out and you know waiting on my family to come and ultimately my family settled in oslo in norway and so that's why i say home is wherever my mother is i talk about the places i want to be and where it most feels like home to me and it's always wherever she is you know as long as i'm close by and she's you know she's with me that for me feels like home turmeric and cumin so the turmeric is going to give our sugar a very bright almost burnt orange yellowish color you'll see i'm going to cover this a bit so that it can get tender in the meantime i'm gonna get my green pepper and lime ready also i'm not sure why but bell peppers green bell peppers are a big part of somali cooking as well it's like the salad of somalia just gonna give these a very thin slice these are the last things i throw in because i want them to be crunchy and not you know overcooked give it a little stir oh that's it it smells just like my mom's house if you had to eat one dish for the rest of your life what would it be i don't know lot is definitely up there for me that's for sure makes me incredibly happy researching somalia for the cookbook was surprisingly easy but very difficult to document because somalis everywhere in the world are forever a moving piece but i did learn a lot you know i learned that people make their hawajis different than my family does i learned that some people's best best is different than ours could have solely focused on my lineage and my upbringing and my heritage and my origin story but for me it seemed i would be doing even myself a disservice if i didn't give myself the chance to sit at the feet of my elders who are these women who are matriarchies who hold you know the keys to family secrets whether it be recipes or you know oral history i was taught as a little girl sitting in a kitchen with my mother and her mother and their friends you know the history of nomadic somalis the history of you know different tribes the history of the religion um islam religion or islamic religion and so it was important for me to put myself in a position of a student not to only preserve these stories but to share them on a global level and then to also preserve these recipes for us there's the color i was talking about i could tell that my carrots are beginning to get tender smells like my mother's kitchen somalis like to eat their heat on the side we do not add it to our food so it's up to the person how spicy they want their food right where in our neighboring countries like eritrea and ethiopia the heat is already added into the fruit for you i'm gonna do about two tablespoons of lime juice let me combine this together oh yeah how beautiful is that i'll just go ahead and stir in a little cilantro maybe my favorite herb if you want to add a little bit of heat you can chop some jalapenos and just throw it on there or you can make yourself some best bets i've made a bit of a mess so before serving myself i'm going to straighten up i'll turn this off we're just about ready i don't know if i mentioned this but my mother has five daughters and five boys and this is her recipe and for a very very long time i did not enjoy cooking because cooking for me was a chore but now it's my favorite thing to do it's my love language it's how i say i love you to someone i love asking people as soon as they walk into my house have you eaten yet it's like a little bit of something that i got from my mother which i'm really grateful for i really wanted to address the conversations that had been told about where i'd come from i really wanted to have a bigger conversation about the content of africa through food you know about our similarities about the spices we share about the indian ocean and the whole thing for me feels like one big circle you know all to really talk about africa from longer table and shorter fences i'm going to put my solar on a bed of lettuce we've got some here in the fridge often this is eaten with rice or somali breast which is a somali pilaf rice or it's eaten with greens just like this the heat from the square will wilt down my lettuce so i'm not really worried about it i enjoy the crunchiness of it let's see if it tastes like my mother's oh yeah the beef is so tender there you have it this is a somali stir fry it came together so quickly under 10 ingredients i couldn't wish for more i think to say anything about one cuisine being monolithic is false just as africa is not a country neither are cuisines it is really good youthe real story of global culinary tradition can be found in the kitchens of everyday women cooking for their families so much so that i wrote a book about it featuring grandmothers from different african countries sharing traditional recipes from their homeland now i want to share my take on some of these classic african dishes for you to enjoy welcome to hawa at home hi everyone i'm hala hassan and today i'm going to be making one of my favorite meals i'm going to be making beef squad which is a somali stir fry it's my mother's recipe it's in my cookbook in bibi's kitchen this dish is traditionally made with goat i'm not gonna make it with goat today i'm gonna go ahead and use what i have at home we have this thing in somalia called chekosheko which means like there's a lot of conversation happening and shikoshiko usually takes place over tea so for me commotion feels like home so i'm looking for maybe a chuck steak to cut up into small chunks to put in my stew but also the smell of hawaj the smell of cinnamon the smell of angelo burning in the morning which is our angera and this is a beef chuck steak what makes it really special is how fast it comes together it's under 10 ingredients and can be done in less than 20 minutes literally what we're doing we're cutting small chunks of beef into little cubes this is a dish that is near and dear to my heart i grew up eating it it's my mother's favorite all of my sisters learned it from our mother with beef sugar you want to be sure that you buy your own beef you'll often see pre-cut stew meat you don't want to use that you want to get your own cut so that you can make sure everything is cut in the same size so that it cooks evenly i'm using about a pound and a half but i'll take two pounds the great thing about going to the butcher to get your meat is that you can first of all select your meat and then you can customize it to yourself so i love to come here i love to be able to get a whole um a whole cut of a steak and then do the the chunks myself and so i love doing that on my own i love coming here for the new zealand lamb i just also you know how fresh the meat is as opposed to the supermarket so i really encourage if you've got a great great butcher by you make friends with the guys and the gals there turn this to high medium heat now that i've got my heat on i'm just gonna get some canola oil i'll use about two tablespoons you can tell our oil is hot and our skillet is ready i'll throw in our beef i'm just gonna give it a large pinch of salt i want to make sure that it browns evenly i'm going to go ahead and get my yellow onion i'm using a yellow onion again because this is what this dish calls for tamales they have a whole thing about not trusting people who don't cook with red onion it's just sweeter in flavor this is my mother's recipe and i don't take any liberties with her stuff otherwise i won't hear the end in somali culture we say paradise is at the feeder of our mom what she says goes and she said a yellow onion so here we are i'm gonna give this a chop almost the same size as my meat all right bring this all together so i want to let this come together until my onions begin to soften in the meantime i've got some carrots that are peeled i cook with ton of carrots and so carrots are a staple in my refrigerator so many different ways you can cook carrots and an easy easy way to add some vegetables to your cooking i'm gonna cut them into coin-sized pieces this will help the carrots cook fast and evenly and you know what vegetables can vary so use one that you like cut them in the same size so that they cook evenly this is a traditional somali recipe every family has their own version of beef sugar a lot of somalis use you know flavors of the indian ocean so we use ton of turmeric in our cooking lots of cinnamon lots of cardamom here today we're using turmeric and cumin but you know there are some families that use a spice called hawaj which consists of many warm and savory spices here's my favorite hau waj this is also another great place that has a hawaii that's pre-made and is really reflective of the one we use in somalia somalia has the longest coast inland um we are heavily influenced by the yemen's the italians we are really lucky in that we're right there on the indian spice trade so a lot of our food is reflective of that you know cardamom cumin cinnamon cloves turmeric those are all flavors that are heavy in our everyday foods all right give this a stir my intentions are to not only showcase but to teach people that cooking from the continent is really about your pantry and everything you need is already there yeah i think when i'm creating a recipe i'm going for smell i'm going for taste and then i'm also going for tradition and that comes from conversations with my mom and so you know i have i have a recipe that i make called loho which is somali pancakes and i make mine a bit more savory it's literally like a crepe and so i've made mines with onion cloves vinegary and some people would say that's not somali but it's my version of lojo all right our onions are beginning to break down the beef is almost completely brown it's new old it's my memories it's traditions from my family and then it's an interpretation of the way i see the recipe you can create recipes that are from your cultural background but then you can tailor them for your audience and for your life you want to be sure not to overcook your beef this recipe really takes no time to cook so just keep an eye on it i'm throwing in my carrots and carrots are a big part of our meals i want my carrots to get a little tender about five minutes or so and then i'll add our seasoning while this takes place i'm gonna straighten up a little bit and for good measure i'm gonna use just a little bit more salt somalis are from the horn of africa like myself but we're on the indian ocean which means we benefit from the spice trade and today we'll see some of that show up in here in the 90s somalia was experiencing a civil war and my family like most other families fled to nairobi in kenya where i spent four years and then my family stayed for a long time but in that i was sent to seattle with a family friend for me started then the cycle of having to figure it out and you know waiting on my family to come and ultimately my family settled in oslo in norway and so that's why i say home is wherever my mother is i talk about the places i want to be and where it most feels like home to me and it's always wherever she is you know as long as i'm close by and she's you know she's with me that for me feels like home turmeric and cumin so the turmeric is going to give our sugar a very bright almost burnt orange yellowish color you'll see i'm going to cover this a bit so that it can get tender in the meantime i'm gonna get my green pepper and lime ready also i'm not sure why but bell peppers green bell peppers are a big part of somali cooking as well it's like the salad of somalia just gonna give these a very thin slice these are the last things i throw in because i want them to be crunchy and not you know overcooked give it a little stir oh that's it it smells just like my mom's house if you had to eat one dish for the rest of your life what would it be i don't know lot is definitely up there for me that's for sure makes me incredibly happy researching somalia for the cookbook was surprisingly easy but very difficult to document because somalis everywhere in the world are forever a moving piece but i did learn a lot you know i learned that people make their hawajis different than my family does i learned that some people's best best is different than ours could have solely focused on my lineage and my upbringing and my heritage and my origin story but for me it seemed i would be doing even myself a disservice if i didn't give myself the chance to sit at the feet of my elders who are these women who are matriarchies who hold you know the keys to family secrets whether it be recipes or you know oral history i was taught as a little girl sitting in a kitchen with my mother and her mother and their friends you know the history of nomadic somalis the history of you know different tribes the history of the religion um islam religion or islamic religion and so it was important for me to put myself in a position of a student not to only preserve these stories but to share them on a global level and then to also preserve these recipes for us there's the color i was talking about i could tell that my carrots are beginning to get tender smells like my mother's kitchen somalis like to eat their heat on the side we do not add it to our food so it's up to the person how spicy they want their food right where in our neighboring countries like eritrea and ethiopia the heat is already added into the fruit for you i'm gonna do about two tablespoons of lime juice let me combine this together oh yeah how beautiful is that i'll just go ahead and stir in a little cilantro maybe my favorite herb if you want to add a little bit of heat you can chop some jalapenos and just throw it on there or you can make yourself some best bets i've made a bit of a mess so before serving myself i'm going to straighten up i'll turn this off we're just about ready i don't know if i mentioned this but my mother has five daughters and five boys and this is her recipe and for a very very long time i did not enjoy cooking because cooking for me was a chore but now it's my favorite thing to do it's my love language it's how i say i love you to someone i love asking people as soon as they walk into my house have you eaten yet it's like a little bit of something that i got from my mother which i'm really grateful for i really wanted to address the conversations that had been told about where i'd come from i really wanted to have a bigger conversation about the content of africa through food you know about our similarities about the spices we share about the indian ocean and the whole thing for me feels like one big circle you know all to really talk about africa from longer table and shorter fences i'm going to put my solar on a bed of lettuce we've got some here in the fridge often this is eaten with rice or somali breast which is a somali pilaf rice or it's eaten with greens just like this the heat from the square will wilt down my lettuce so i'm not really worried about it i enjoy the crunchiness of it let's see if it tastes like my mother's oh yeah the beef is so tender there you have it this is a somali stir fry it came together so quickly under 10 ingredients i couldn't wish for more i think to say anything about one cuisine being monolithic is false just as africa is not a country neither are cuisines it is really good you\n"