Monalisa
Cooking made easy with Monalisa
A
chef Monalisa Rwechungura
confidence in the home kitchens of
creates food that looks like
Tanzania and encourage people to
a work of art. She has also made it
venture outside their culinary comfort
possible for the general public to
zone with plenty of international
recreate her delicious looking and
dishes alongside local staples to try
tasting dishes with a series of step-
out. Rwechungura has a smiley screen
by-step video guides.
presence and her way of breaking
s befits her name, Tanzanian
Rwechungura’s culinary brand, Diko
Rwechungura is also keen to breed
YouTube chef Monalisa Rwechungura
and to provide recipes for her dishes. The home chef relished the challenge and in exploring avenues to expand
down even seemingly complex dishes
the reach of her recipes she became
by Monalisa, has its own YouTube
into simple steps makes impressive
aware of the lack of Swahili-language
channel with more than 30 bright, fun
meals within the reach of cookery
instructional cooking videos.
and easy-to-follow recipe videos for
beginners. Her quick and easy
dishes ranging from Tanzanian classics
videos – they all clock in at around the
digital agency Blink View to create
such as cow’s liver stew and chapatis
four-minute mark – are ideal for time-
Diko by Monalisa and its bank of
to international favourites spaghetti
pressed professionals, students and
videos along with an Instagram site
Bolognese, pasta marinara, lemon and
parents who want to make nutritious
filled with recipes as well as plenty
pepper fried chicken and Philadelphia
meals for themselves and loved ones.
of mouth-watering images of her
cheese steak. For those with a sweet
Last year, she teamed up with Dar
completed dishes.
tooth, there are also guides to some
Passion project
delicious desserts such as chocolate
Diko by Monalisa is a passion project
and hugely positive with more than
cupcakes.
for Rwechungura. Though she
5,000 followers on Instagram and
graduated university in 2011 with a
hundreds subscribing to the videos
Video guides
degree in business administration and
The public response has been rapid
Delicious
and following the recipes at home.
Instructional cooking videos are a
went on to forge a career in marketing
global phenomenon with a host of
across several industries, cooking was
following, uploading more recipes
chefs becoming stars of social media.
always a big part of her life. At the
and providing Swahili speakers with
Rwechungura is able to distinguish
end of a busy working day she always
an amazing resource to expand their
herself from the crowd, not just
made time to cook, coming up with
cooking repertoire at home. There’s
through her delicious food, but also
new recipes and experimenting with
an art to making complex recipes
by conducting the videos in Swahili.
flavouring and technique. These new
simple to follow and Rwechungura
It was a conscious decision from the
culinary creations were tried out on
has mastered it.
start that the videos would target the
Rwechungura’s friends and family,
majority demographic of non-English
who were only too happy to help,
speaking Tanzanians who are unable
such were the tempting treats on
To stream from the full list of video recipes, visit the Diko
to take advantage of the raft of online
offer. Soon Rwechungura was getting
by Monalisa YouTube channel. More information is also
cooking videos.
requests to cater at friends’ gatherings
available at the Instagram page @dikobymonalisa
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Paa Tanzania
Monalisa's dishes
Rwechungura aims to build on this
