Don’t buy me a Rolex watch for Christmas.
Every one I have ever seen seems to epitomize clunky, brainless ostentation.
Now that you have winnowed your gift list down, we can turn to another type of rolex (not capitalized). It’s a Ugandan street dish, and its name not only alludes to the costly and vulgar timepieces but is how “rolled eggs” sounds if you pronounce it fast. Rolex (an Egg Wrap, Not a Watch) Is the Breakfast Recipe to Change Your Mornings – The New York Times (nytimes.com)
A recent survey from pickyeaterblog.com outlines the world’s most popular cuisines, and as you already knew, Ugandan isn’t one of them. Italian comes out on top, with Japanese a surprising second (I guess truck-stop sushi has gone worldwide). It would follow that pizza is the most favored dish (it certainly is among my sons), followed by good ol’ American barbecue, and sushi.
I am old enough to remember when Americans routinely made fun of the Japanese for eating raw fish.
Anyway, back to Uganda. The rolex, popular in Uganda’s capital, Kampala, consists of fried eggs surrounded by a wrapping of the Indian staple bread known as chapati.
The presence of an Indian ingredient is a legacy of the British Empire when many Indians emigrated from British-ruled India to the British-ruled Ugandan Protectorate.
The basic recipe is simple. You scramble some eggs and put them on a heated chapati. “At its most basic, a rolex will have diced onions, shredded green cabbage, and often green peppers,” The New York Times tells us.
Chapati availability is not the same throughout the United States, although they are easily found in Blue Book’s homeland of DuPage County, IL. I imagine a tortilla could be used toward the same end, creating a variant of the breakfast burrito.
At any rate, I’m intrigued by this novel opportunity to add fresh produce to a meal where it often doesn’t make an appearance.
