Night Market · Stuffed Griddle Snack

Zanzibar Pizza

Photo: Polly Sadler / Unsplash · Unsplash License

Despite the name, it has nothing to do with Italy — it's a folded, egg-sealed street snack invented at Stone Town's Forodhani Gardens night market.

A thin sheet of dough is stretched on a hot flat griddle, piled with minced meat or fish, egg, onion, chili and cheese, then folded into a parcel and fried in ghee until crisp outside and molten inside. Vendors slice it into wedges right on the griddle and hand it over wrapped in paper, still sizzling.

Why it's made this way: It is usually traced to Stone Town's Forodhani Gardens food market in recent decades; the name 'pizza' is a nod to a food visitors would recognize rather than to any Italian roots.