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Isinkwa sombila and
isonka wombila fall is deeply delicious. Steaming is a relatively rare cooking method in the West but is common in Asia (think bao buns) and across Africa where oven ownership is often recent and still rare in poorer communities. Steam rather than the dry heat of an oven creates a unique and wonderful texture – smooth, gossamer thin, slightly stretchy skin (rather than a baked crust) and an airy yet firm interior ideal for soaking up sauce.
There are endless arguments as to South Africa’s steamed bread terminology. Whether the moniker “
idombolo” can be translated as the English term “dumpling” is particularly problematic. Dumpling causes confusion because it is used to refer to both the steamed, predominantly yeasted doughs of which we speak but also those baking powder-laden, stodgy orbs which boil and bob about in stews. Purists suggest that the former ought rather to be denoted using the isiZulu word