Recettes Cameroon

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Mbongo Tchobi (Cameroonian Black Spice Stew)

Mbongo tchobi is a jet-black Cameroonian stew, usually made with fish, built on a spice that has been burnt black before grinding. It comes from the Bassa of the Littoral region and is now eaten across the country. The colour is the whole identity of the dish and the source is right that it puts people off before they taste it. It comes from mbongo spice, sometimes sold as black spice or mbongo tchobi, a mixture whose components are charred over fire until black, then ground. Burning spice deliberately, rather than toasting it, is unusual anywhere; here it produces a smoky, faintly bitter depth that nothing else reproduces, and a sauce that looks like ink and tastes rich. The other markers are njansang or akpi, lightly fried before blending, and the herbs, basil and parsley, blended raw into the base rather than added at the end. Pangasius or another white fish is what the recipe uses; catfish is traditional and the source gives the correct treatment for it, pouring hot water over it first to remove the sliminess. The source's prose is badly garbled in places, with words run together and sentences broken mid-clause. The sense has been reconstructed. Its stated serving of one person for a kilo of fish is not credible.

1 hr 5 minMediumCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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Eru Soup (Cameroonian Wild Vegetable Soup)

Eru soup is finely shredded eru leaves cooked down with waterleaf or spinach, palm oil, crayfish, smoked fish, beef and cow skin. It is Cameroonian, most closely associated with the Bayangi of the southwest, and it is one of the country's best-known dishes. Eru is the common name for two closely related climbing vines, *Gnetum africanum* and *Gnetum buchholzianum*, gathered wild from the forest rather than farmed. The leaves are tough and leathery, which is why the method insists on soaking them for hours, or on cooking them with kanwa. That toughness is also why eru is always shredded very finely, much more finely than any cultivated green would be. The pairing with a soft green is not optional. Waterleaf traditionally, or spinach where waterleaf cannot be found, provides the moisture and bulk that eru alone would not, and the ratio is roughly one to one. Palm oil goes in generously and late. The Nigerian relative is afang soup, made by the Efik and Ibibio of Cross River with the same leaf under the name afang or okazi. The two are close cousins: afang tends to be soupier and eru is more finely ground. They are kept as separate pages here because they are genuinely separate national dishes, and that is flagged. The source's health claims about eru's protein and mineral content have not been carried across.

2 hrMediumCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Njama njama is greens blanched, squeezed dry and then cooked through a tomato, onion and chilli base. It is one of the most eaten vegetable dishes in Cameroon, particularly in the North West Region, and it is usually served with corn fufu. The plant it is named after is African nightshade, *Solanum scabrum*, also called huckleberry, a leafy green grown across Cameroon and to a lesser extent Nigeria and Kenya. It is not the same as the toxic nightshades the name might suggest; the cultivated leaf is a staple vegetable and has been for a very long time. The source is honest about a substitution that most sources would hide, and it deserves credit for it: this recipe uses turnip greens rather than actual njama njama, because the real thing is hard to find outside Cameroon. Collard greens and watercress are named as alternatives. The result is a good dish but it is not, strictly, njama njama, and that has been flagged. The technique is worth taking seriously. Blanching, then an ice bath, then squeezing out as much water as possible, is what keeps the greens green and stops them watering down the tomato base. Four bunches of raw greens reduce to about three cups cooked. Khati khati, grilled chicken in tomato sauce, is the usual partner.

50 minEasyCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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Ndole

Ndolé is Cameroon's national dish, bitter leaves cooked down with a thick paste of ground peanuts, with meat, fish or prawns, and it is what appears when an occasion needs marking. It comes from the Sawa people of the Littoral province, around Douala, and it has travelled from there to become the dish most associated with Cameroon anywhere in the world. The source's description of its standing is not overstated: it is treated with the seriousness of a flag. The two components are what make it. Ndolé itself is bitter leaf, the same Vernonia amygdalina used in Igbo ofe onugbu, washed repeatedly to draw out the bitterness. The ground peanut paste is the counterweight, giving richness and body that turns what would be a sharp green into something deep and heavy. Getting the balance right between the two is the whole skill of the dish. Too little washing and it is harsh; too much peanut and it is cloying. Prawns, beef, fish or a combination go in, and it is served with plantain, miondo or rice. **Contains peanut**, unavoidably, it is half the dish.

MediumCameroon · African

Recette de FoodChef · Africook

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Recettes Cameroon

Mbongo Tchobi (Cameroonian Black Spice Stew)

Eru Soup (Cameroonian Wild Vegetable Soup)

Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Ndole

Pepper Soup with Cocoyam or Plantain

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)