Recettes

Mufete

Mufete is a plate from Luanda, and more precisely from Ilha de Luanda, the sandbar that curves off the Angolan capital. It is grilled fish with an onion salsa, set alongside beans in palm oil, plantain, sweet potato and cassava, and it is assembled on a shared platter rather than plated per person. It is weekend food. Angolans eat mufete at lunch or at a late brunch, and the scale of it is the point: the full version, with the beans and all three starches, is understood to require the rest of the day to sit with. There is a lighter version, fish and onion salsa alone, for those who intend to do something afterwards. Mufete has moved from occasion to routine within living memory. It was served at parties, weddings and celebrations, and it is now eaten regularly, particularly by islanders, in Luanda itself. That shift from ceremonial food to weekend food is the kind of movement that usually goes the other way, and it has kept the dish present in the city rather than preserved in it.

Angola3 hr 20 minNympha

Funge

Funge is the Angolan staple, a smooth, elastic cassava porridge that arrives alongside almost everything and asserts nothing on its own. Its neutrality is functional rather than a failure of ambition. A dish with a strong flavour of its own could not do funge's job, which is to carry the flavour of what it is eaten with. It is made from cassava flour and water, and nothing else is required. Cassava is a tropical root crop grown across Angola, and the flour keeps for months, which is part of why the dish has held its place. In Angola it is funge or funji; the same preparation carries different names and different base starches across the continent, and Angolan households recognise the family resemblance without confusing the members. Funge is eaten with the fingers. Small pieces are pulled off, rolled between the fingers, and used to lift stew, fish or greens from a shared bowl. That method makes it a communal dish by construction rather than by sentiment, and eating from the same bowl of funge carries the meaning that shared eating carries everywhere: this is a household, and you are in it.

Angola25 minDebby

Kizaca

Kizaca, also written kizaka or quizaca, is pounded cassava leaves cooked slowly with groundnuts until the leaves soften and the nuts break down into a thick, savoury sauce around them. It is among the most widely eaten dishes in Angola and one of the few that is vegetarian by default. Its composition tells a compressed version of Angolan history. Cassava is not indigenous to Angola; it arrived from Brazil, another Portuguese colony, and became so completely established that its leaves are now a national green. Palm oil, groundnuts and slow cooking are the local contribution. Angolan food is often described as Portuguese influence over African ingredients, and kizaca shows the arrangement is more complicated than that: the central ingredient is an import that has been African for centuries. It is normally eaten as an accompaniment to meat or fish rather than as the centre of a plate, and kizaka com peixe, made with fish, onions and tomato, is the most common form in Angola. Rice or chikuanga goes alongside. Angolan cooks make it in advance deliberately, because the flavour of cassava leaf and groundnut needs several hours together before it settles.

AngolaNympha

Muamba de galinha, an Angolan chicken stew cooked in red palm oil with okra and squash

Muamba De Galinha (Angolan Chicken Stew)

Muamba de galinha is the dish most often named as Angola's national one, and it earns the title by being the clearest single statement of what Angolan cooking is. Chicken marinated in garlic and paprika, seared in red palm oil, simmered with onion, tomato and hot pepper, thickened with okra and given body by squash. The palm oil is not a background ingredient. It is what turns the stew the deep orange that muamba is recognised by, and it carries a specific flavour that no other fat provides. Angolans call it dendem or red oil, and a muamba made with anything else is a chicken stew rather than a muamba. The name itself points somewhere older. Muamba refers to a family of dishes built on palm across Angola and the wider Congo basin, of which muamba de galinha is the chicken version and muamba de ginguba the groundnut one. The Portuguese in the name is only the galinha. It is eaten with funge, the cassava porridge, or with rice, and the version here serves it with cassava tossed in lemon and garlic, which is a contemporary treatment of a very old accompaniment.

Angola45 minChef.donkey

Groundnut Sweet

Groundnut sweet is peanuts set in caramelised sugar and cut into blocks, and it is made from three things: groundnuts, sugar and water. In Cameroon it is sold by the piece from roadside tables and market stalls, cut from a slab with a knife, and it is among the cheapest sweet things available anywhere in the country. Groundnuts are grown across Cameroon and across the West African savannah generally, and the confection follows the crop. Similar sweets exist wherever groundnuts are abundant and sugar is affordable, which covers a great deal of the continent and much of the world beyond it, and each region has arrived at its own version independently. What makes it work is the contrast in texture rather than any complexity of flavour. The sugar sets to a hard, glassy shell around nuts that stay crisp inside it, so a piece shatters rather than chews. It is the kind of sweet that gets eaten by the handful without anyone deciding to, and it is made in slabs precisely because it is sold and eaten in that way: broken off, handed round, gone.

CameroonNympha

Muamba chicken, an Angolan chicken stew cooked in palm oil with peanut and okra, served over rice

Muamba Chicken (Muamba De Galinha)

Muamba is a family of palm based dishes across Angola and the Congo basin, and the chicken version is the one most often named as Angola's national dish. Chicken is simmered in palm oil with onion, garlic, tomato and hot pepper, thickened with okra, and served over rice or with funge, the cassava porridge. This particular version takes a path towards the Congo. Peanut butter goes in alongside the palm oil, which is a Congolese and Central African treatment more closely associated with moambe than with the Luandan preparation, and the result is heavier and nuttier than the Angolan version that relies on palm oil and okra alone. Both are legitimate. Muamba names a method rather than a single fixed recipe, and it changes as it crosses the region. The palm oil is what holds all the versions together. It is pressed from the fruit of the oil palm, which is indigenous to West and Central Africa, and it gives the dish its deep orange colour and a flavour that no other fat provides. Angolans call it dendem. Whatever else varies between one muamba and the next, a version made without palm oil is a chicken stew and not a muamba, which is the one point on which nobody in the region disagrees.

Angola1 hr 30 minNympha

Sanga

Sanga is a Cameroonian dish of pounded greens cooked with palm nut cream and fresh maize, and it sits between a stew and a porridge in a way that neither word quite covers. It comes from the southern and central regions of the country. The maize is the point. Fresh corn kernels go in at the end in quantity, and their sweetness against the palm cream and the slightly bitter greens is the whole balance of the dish. Some households include sugar; most consider it unnecessary because the corn and the vegetables supply enough on their own. The source for this recipe is inconsistent about which green is used, naming both pounded cassava leaves and black nightshade leaves, called zom in Cameroon, and both are genuinely used in Cameroonian cooking. The ingredient list here follows cassava leaves. Cameroon's food carries an unusual number of influences for one country, with French, Portuguese, German and neighbouring traditions all present alongside a very large number of internal ethnic cuisines. Sanga belongs firmly to the indigenous side of that. Palm nut cream, pounded leaves and maize are the raw materials of the forest zone, and the dish has stayed close to them.

CameroonBlessing

Kati Kati

Kati kati is grilled chicken finished in palm oil, and it belongs to the Nkom people of the Northwest region of Cameroon. It is one of the older and more distinctive dishes of that area, and the method is unusual: the chicken is charred over an open flame first, then simmered in palm oil with seasoning. Made traditionally it is stark. Freshly butchered chicken, salt and freshly ground pepper only, roasted over open fire until well coloured, then lightly simmered in palm oil with a stock cube. Everything else is a later addition. This version uses granulated garlic, onion powder and cayenne before grilling, which the contributor is clear is their own adjustment rather than the traditional preparation. The contributor also makes a point worth passing on: do not throw any part of the chicken away. Neck, gizzard, feet and back are, in their view, the best parts, and breast and thigh the least interesting. That is a common position across West and Central African cooking and it runs directly counter to how chicken is usually sold and eaten elsewhere. Rooster is recommended over hen for being lean and the most flavourful while still cooking through on the grill. It is served with corn fufu and njama njama, the huckleberry greens of the region.

Cameroon1 hrBlessing

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

These are fritters of mashed ripe banana and corn flour, leavened with yeast and deep fried, and the contributor is candid about where they came from: banana fritters exist, corn fritters exist, and this combines the two. It is an invention rather than an inherited dish. Both parents have their own histories. Corn fritters are a traditional sweet and savoury snack in the southern United States and in Indonesia, where they are perkedel jagung or bakwan jagung, and they originate in Native American cooking. Banana fritters are made across West Africa and much of the tropics, and appear in this archive as klako and krakro. What makes this version work is the yeast. Most fritter batters are leavened chemically or not at all; this one proves for an hour to ninety minutes, which is why the finished fritters are chewy and bread-like inside rather than dense. Very ripe bananas, heavily spotted, mash without lumps and carry more flavour. The result is described as sweet and salty at once, which the salt in the batter is doing deliberately. Peanut oil for frying is a common West and Central African choice, and it carries an allergen worth flagging.

Cameroon1 hr 45 minCuisine228

Pepper soup with beef and cocoyam in a spiced Cameroonian broth

Pepper Soup with Cocoyam or Plantain

Pepper soup is the thin, fiercely spiced West African broth built on meat or fish, chilli and a set of aromatic seeds that give it a flavour nothing else reproduces. This version comes with cocoyam or plantain cooked in the pot, which turns a light soup into a full meal. The ingredients place it in Cameroon rather than Nigeria, whatever the general framing suggests. Njansang, the crushed seed used as a thickener and flavouring, and bush pepper are Cameroonian pantry staples, and Cameroon pepper, the dark powder ground from dried scotch bonnets, appears throughout. Nigerian pepper soup leans instead on ehuru, the African nutmeg, and on utazi and uziza leaves. They are cousins rather than the same soup. Pepper soup is served in restaurants and bars across the region, and it is genuinely a category rather than a single recipe: catfish, goat meat, chicken, cow foot and assorted offal all have their own versions, several of which are on this site. The source makes extensive medicinal claims for it, that it cures fevers, clears congestion and aids weight loss. None of that has been carried across. It is a hot, restorative bowl of soup, which is a reasonable thing to say about it, and it is not medicine.

Cameroon2 hrFoodChef

Accra banana, Cameroonian fritters of banana and grated cassava, fried golden

Accra Banana (Cameroonian Banana and Cassava Fritters)

Overripe bananas mashed with grated cassava, seasoned with salt and deep-fried into small golden balls. In Cameroon it is street food sold nationwide, and it is also celebration food, a fixture at Christmas parties and weddings. What sets it apart from the many other West African banana fritters is the starch. Most versions bind mashed banana with wheat flour, rice flour or cornmeal; this one uses grated cassava, which is why it is also called accra cassava. Cassava is worked into an enormous number of forms in Cameroonian cooking, fufu, garri, bobolo sticks, and this is one more. The result is chewier and denser than a flour-based fritter, with the cassava's faint sourness cutting the sweetness of the fruit. Overripe bananas are not a compromise here, they are the requirement. A firm banana has neither the sweetness nor the softness the mixture needs, and the dish exists partly as a way of using fruit that has gone too far to eat out of hand. The usual accompaniment is African pepper sauce, which is worth taking seriously: the contrast between a sweet fried fritter and a fierce chilli sauce is the whole point of eating them together.

Cameroon45 minBlessing

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)

Achu soup, called yellow soup for its colour, is a Cameroonian speciality from the North West region, served with pounded cocoyam. The colour is the result of a chemical reaction rather than a spice. Red palm oil is worked together with limestone water, kanwa, ground limestone dissolved and strained, and the alkali reacts with the oil to turn it from deep red to a bright yellow, at the same time thickening it into a smooth, slightly slippery sauce. Nothing else produces that colour, which is why the soup cannot be made without it. Achu itself is the accompaniment: cocoyam boiled and pounded to a smooth, elastic paste, served in a mound with a well pressed into the centre for the soup. Eating it has its own form. The soup is poured into the well and the achu is taken from the edges with the fingers, dipped, and eaten. It is a dish that takes a long time to prepare and is associated with occasions. Achu spice, a regional blend, and assorted meat including tripe and cow skin complete it. **Uses limestone.** Traditional in culinary quantity; measure rather than estimate.

CameroonBlessing

Cabrito (Goat Meat Stew)

Cabrito is Angolan goat stew, cooked slowly and built on wine and fortified wine rather than the palm oil or tomato base most West African stews use. Goat is central to Angolan eating, and the eastern region is where it is raised, enough to supply the country and to sell across the borders. It carries an occasion weight that other meats do not: at celebrations, graduation parties and holidays, a goat dish on the table is what people go for first. The Portuguese influence is what makes the stew unusual on this continent. Red wine, brandy and sherry all go into it, and the long slow cooking that follows breaks down a cut that would otherwise be tough while the alcohol reduces to something concentrated and savoury. Four centuries of Portuguese colonial presence left this kind of cooking embedded in Angolan food, alongside the indigenous techniques. The word cabrito means kid goat in Portuguese, and younger animals are the preference, more tender, less strongly flavoured. **Contains alcohol.** Most cooks off during the long simmer, but not all of it.

AngolaNympha

Cameroonian Koki Corn steamed corn pudding wrapped in banana leaves, a traditional Central African dish from Cameroon

Cameroon Koki Corn

Koki corn is a Cameroonian steamed pudding made from ground fresh corn mixed with palm oil and greens, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed until it sets firm. It is the corn version of a dish more commonly made with black-eyed peas. Koki beans, ground soaked beans treated the same way, is the better-known form, and the two are close relatives using the same technique on different staples. Both belong to a wider West and Central African family of leaf-wrapped steamed puddings that includes moi moi and abala. The wrapping is not decorative. Banana leaves are warmed over a flame first, which makes them pliable enough to fold without splitting, and they hold the loose mixture in shape while it steams. They also contribute a faint grassy aroma that the pudding takes on. Palm oil is heated before it goes in, which changes how it behaves in the mixture and gives the finished koki its deep orange colour. Njama njama, huckleberry leaves, a Cameroonian staple green, or spinach is folded through. It sets firm enough to slice and is eaten hot, on its own or with plantain.

CameroonBlessing

Catatos (Angolan Fried Caterpillars)

Catatos are dried caterpillars fried with garlic, onion, peppers and tomato. They are an Angolan dish, eaten with rice or funge and hot sauce, and they are entirely ordinary food there. Edible caterpillars are a serious food source across Central and Southern Africa, not a novelty. The mopane worm, the caterpillar of the emperor moth that feeds on mopane trees, supports a substantial harvesting and trading economy across Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa, and related species are gathered and dried across Angola and the Congo basin. They are seasonal, they are dried for storage, and they are traded in markets by the sack. The texture, when cooked properly, is soft inside with a crisp exterior, and the comparison people most often reach for is prawns. The dried caterpillars are rehydrated first, which is what the initial soaking is for. Africa has a long and unbroken tradition of eating insects that Europe and North America are only now rediscovering under the heading of alternative protein. It is worth stating plainly that this is established food with established techniques, not an experiment. The source names a specific seasoning cube brand, which has been described generically here.

Angola45 minNympha

Chikuanga, dense Angolan cassava bread, sliced

Chikuanga (Cassava Bread)

Chikuanga, also called kwanga, is fermented cassava pounded to a dense paste, wrapped and cooked into a firm loaf that is sliced and eaten with stews. It is made across Angola and the Congo basin, and the source associates it particularly with northeastern Angola. The long soak at the start is the whole process, and it is not a convenience step. Cassava is soaked for two full days at minimum, during which it ferments, and that fermentation is what makes it safe. Raw cassava contains cyanogenic glycosides which release cyanide, and soaking, fermenting and cooking are the traditional sequence developed over centuries to remove them. This is one of the clearest examples anywhere of a food processing technique that exists for a reason people worked out long before anyone could explain the chemistry. Longer soaking gives a softer, more sourly fermented result. Traditionally the finished paste is wrapped in banana or marantaceae leaves before its final cooking, and the leaves flavour it as it steams. The source's method substitutes cling film and string, which works but loses that. Where leaves are available they are worth using. The source calls Angola the Democratic Republic of Angola, which is not its name, the country is the Republic of Angola. Kwanga is also strongly associated with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which may be where the confusion arose.

Angola2 hr 45 minNympha

Eru soup, Cameroonian shredded wild leaves cooked with palm oil and fish

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.

Cameroon2 hrBlessing

Fumbua (Congolese Wild Spinach Stew)

Fumbua is chopped wild greens cooked with smoked fish, peanut butter and palm oil into a thick, savoury stew. It comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and is eaten in Angola too. **It contains peanut butter, which the title gives no indication of.** The greens the dish is named for are fumbwa, the leaves of *Gnetum africanum*, the same wild forest vine known as eru in Cameroon and afang or okazi in Nigeria. That single plant supports a whole cluster of Central and West African dishes, each with its own name and its own treatment, and fumbua is the Congolese one. Its distinguishing feature within that group is the peanut butter, which thickens the stew and gives it a richness that eru and afang do not have. Peanuts and palm oil doing the work together is characteristic of Congo basin cooking generally, and it is the same combination that underpins moambe, the Congolese national dish. The source is realistic about substitution, and rightly so. Genuine fumbwa leaves are hard to find outside the region, and it recommends spinach, kale or collard greens instead. That is a fair compromise, the texture will be softer and the flavour milder, but the dish still works. The source's low-carbohydrate framing has not been carried across.

Democratic Republic of the Congo55 minNympha

Kondré, Cameroonian green plantain and meat stewed with spices

Kondré (Cameroonian Spiced Plantain and Meat Stew)

Kondré is green plantain and meat cooked slowly together in a blended spice paste until both are completely tender. It comes from the Bamileke of western Cameroon and is made for weddings, family gatherings and funerals. Three things make it, and the source sets them out clearly. The meat, goat traditionally, beef commonly, sometimes smoked pork, cooked long enough to fall off the bone, which means an hour and a half at minimum. The plantain, which must be green and unripe: ripe plantain collapses over three hours of cooking and, more importantly, tastes wrong. The source's line is worth quoting in spirit, if it is not green, it is not kondré. The third component is the spice list, and it is what makes this specifically Cameroonian rather than a generic stew. Pèbè (false nutmeg), djansang, rondelles, mesep and white Penja pepper are West and Central African spices with no straightforward substitutes, sold at African grocers. Penja pepper in particular is a protected Cameroonian product with a real reputation. Toasting the whole seeds before blending is marked optional in the method. It is worth doing, dry-toasting hard seeds releases their oils and deepens the whole dish. The source's ingredient list omits the plantain itself, which the method then requires.

Cameroon3 hr 25 minBlessing

Kwacoco bible, Cameroonian grated cocoyam steamed in banana leaves

Kwacoco Bible (Cameroonian Steamed Cocoyam)

Kwacoco bible is grated cocoyam mixed with palm oil, smoked fish, crayfish and greens, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed until set. It is a staple of the Bakweri of Cameroon's South West Region. Its closest relative is Nigerian moi moi, the steamed bean pudding, and the technique is the same: a wet seasoned mixture portioned into leaf parcels and cooked in a covered pot with water in the base. Grated cocoyam behaves much like blended beans, it sets into a firm, sliceable mass when steamed, because the starch gelatinises and holds everything suspended in it. The banana leaves are not packaging. They flavour the parcels as they steam, and they are what gives the dish its particular aroma; foil holds the shape but contributes nothing. Cocoyam is worth knowing about here, because the variety matters. The source notes that the pink-fleshed ones are starchier and drier when cooked, and that raw cocoyam can leave a slight itch in the throat, that is calcium oxalate, and cooking removes it entirely. It is also why gloves are worth wearing when grating. Nobody, including the source, can explain the name. It has been left unexplained rather than given an invented etymology.

Cameroon1 hr 40 minBlessing

Mbongo tchobi, a black Cameroonian fish stew

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.

Cameroon1 hr 5 minBlessing

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.

CameroonFoodChef

Ndomba, Cameroonian fish seasoned and steamed in banana leaves

Ndomba (Cameroonian Fish Steamed in Leaves)

Ndomba is fish, chicken or pork seasoned with a paste of local aromatics, wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. It is Cameroonian, and it belongs to the same family of leaf-wrapped dishes as kwacoco bible and ekpang nkwukwo. Papillote is the technique, and the leaves are not packaging. Wrapped tightly, the parcel traps every drop of moisture the fish releases, so it cooks in its own juices with the aromatics rather than losing them to a pan. The banana leaf also flavours what is inside it, a grassy, faintly tea-like note that foil cannot provide. Joom leaves, which the ingredient list also names, are used the same way in Cameroon. The spice list is what places it. Pèbè (false nutmeg), country onions, white pepper, mesep (wild basil), akpi and garlic are West and Central African aromatics, and the source is right that the blend changes depending on whether you are making the fish, chicken or pork version. Two problems with the source. It calls for two sachets of a branded spice mix, which has been described generically. And the whole recipe is very sparse, five short steps for a dish that involves making a spice paste, portioning, wrapping and steaming.

Cameroon55 minBlessing

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.

Cameroon50 minBlessing

Potato Hot Pot

Potatoes parboiled and browned, then finished in a tomato and pepper sauce with vegetables and shrimp. The source places it in Cameroon and identifies it as a close relation of poulet DG, which is the useful frame. Poulet DG, poulet Directeur Général, the general manager's chicken, is one of Cameroon's best-known dishes: chicken with fried ripe plantain in a vegetable-heavy sauce, named for its expense and its association with people who could afford it. Potato hot pot is the same construction with potatoes in place of plantain, and it is worth understanding the substitution rather than treating this as a generic potato stew. The technique that carries it is the one people skip. The potatoes are parboiled and then fried or browned before they go into the sauce, which means they arrive with a crisp exterior and hold their shape rather than disintegrating. Potatoes added raw to a tomato sauce break down and thicken it into mush. The source is relaxed about the protein, chicken, beef, pork, fish, shrimp or beef liver all work, and the ingredient list happens to use shrimp. Crayfish or smoked turkey are common additions. The "Mild Fresh herbs Blend" in the ingredients is not defined anywhere. A blend of parsley, celery leaf, spring onion and basil is the usual Cameroonian equivalent.

Cameroon55 minBlessing

Poulet DG

Poulet DG is Cameroonian, fried chicken and ripe plantain in a tomato and vegetable sauce, cooked as one pot and served hot. The name is the good part. Poulet is French for chicken; DG stands for Directeur Général, Managing Director. The dish is named for the kind of person who could afford it. It emerged as a dish for those with money, at a time when chicken and plantain together in that quantity was not an everyday proposition, and the name stuck as a piece of affectionate mockery. It is now widely cooked at every level. The construction is what makes it work. Chicken is fried and set aside; plantain is fried separately until caramelised at the edges; a sauce of tomato, onion, pepper, carrot and green beans is built in the same pan; then everything is combined briefly at the end. That last part matters. The plantain is added late so it keeps its shape and its sweetness against the savoury sauce rather than dissolving into it. It is best eaten immediately, the source is emphatic that it is markedly better hot.

CameroonBlessing

Sese plantains, Cameroonian green plantain cooked with palm oil and tomato

Sese Plantains (Cameroonian Plantain Porridge)

Green plantain cooked down in water with tomato, onion, pepper and palm oil until soft and the liquid has thickened around it. It is Cameroonian and eaten across West Africa, and it is one of the most straightforward one-pot meals in the repertoire. The name is a description of the cooking. Sese refers to the motion of turning the plantains as they cook, which is what gives the dish its texture, the pieces soften and their starch leaches into the liquid, thickening it without any need for a thickener. It is also called sese planti, turning planti, or simply unripe plantain porridge. Green plantain is the requirement rather than a preference. Unripe plantain is starchy and firm, holds its shape through the cooking, and provides the starch that thickens the pot. Ripe plantain is sweet and soft, disintegrates, and turns the dish into something else entirely. It scales in both directions. At its simplest it is plantain, palm oil, salt and crayfish; elaborated, it takes fish, any meat and vegetables. Both versions are made routinely. The source's water quantity is malformed and its health claims about palm oil have not been carried across. Cashews as a garnish are an unusual touch and worth keeping.

Cameroon50 minBlessing

Recettes

Fumbua (Congolese Wild Spinach Stew)

Eru Soup (Cameroonian Wild Vegetable Soup)

Chikuanga (Cassava Bread)

Catatos (Angolan Fried Caterpillars)

Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Ndomba (Cameroonian Fish Steamed in Leaves)

Cameroon Koki Corn

Cabrito (Goat Meat Stew)

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)

Accra Banana (Cameroonian Banana and Cassava Fritters)

Plats emblématiques

Recettes les plus populaires

Mufete

Funge

Kizaca

Muamba De Galinha (Angolan Chicken Stew)

Groundnut Sweet

Muamba Chicken (Muamba De Galinha)

Sanga

Kati Kati

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

Pepper Soup with Cocoyam or Plantain

Accra Banana (Cameroonian Banana and Cassava Fritters)

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)

Cabrito (Goat Meat Stew)

Cameroon Koki Corn

Catatos (Angolan Fried Caterpillars)

Chikuanga (Cassava Bread)

Eru Soup (Cameroonian Wild Vegetable Soup)

Fumbua (Congolese Wild Spinach Stew)

Kondré (Cameroonian Spiced Plantain and Meat Stew)

Kwacoco Bible (Cameroonian Steamed Cocoyam)

Mbongo Tchobi (Cameroonian Black Spice Stew)

Ndole

Ndomba (Cameroonian Fish Steamed in Leaves)

Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Potato Hot Pot

Poulet DG

Sese Plantains (Cameroonian Plantain Porridge)

Recettes

Recettes à la une

Fumbua (Congolese Wild Spinach Stew)

Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Ndomba (Cameroonian Fish Steamed in Leaves)

Cameroon Koki Corn

Cabrito (Goat Meat Stew)

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)

Accra Banana (Cameroonian Banana and Cassava Fritters)

Plats emblématiques

Recettes les plus populaires

Mufete

Funge

Kizaca

Muamba De Galinha (Angolan Chicken Stew)

Groundnut Sweet

Muamba Chicken (Muamba De Galinha)

Sanga

Kati Kati

Cameroonian Banana and Corn Fritters

Pepper Soup with Cocoyam or Plantain

Accra Banana (Cameroonian Banana and Cassava Fritters)

Achu Soup (Yellow Soup)

Cabrito (Goat Meat Stew)

Cameroon Koki Corn

Catatos (Angolan Fried Caterpillars)

Chikuanga (Cassava Bread)

Eru Soup (Cameroonian Wild Vegetable Soup)

Fumbua (Congolese Wild Spinach Stew)

Kondré (Cameroonian Spiced Plantain and Meat Stew)

Kwacoco Bible (Cameroonian Steamed Cocoyam)

Mbongo Tchobi (Cameroonian Black Spice Stew)

Ndole

Ndomba (Cameroonian Fish Steamed in Leaves)

Njama Njama (Cameroonian Greens)

Potato Hot Pot

Poulet DG

Sese Plantains (Cameroonian Plantain Porridge)