Dakhine
Abuja, Nigeria ·
Aperçu
Dakhine is a Senegalese rice dish built on peanut paste, meat and tomato, and it belongs to the evening. Where thieboudienne opens the significant family lunch, dakhine is what Senegalese households eat at night, which gives it a domestic, unceremonious character that the country's more famous dishes do not have. Its economy is part of its identity. Rice, oil, peanut paste and vegetables are inexpensive and available everywhere in Senegal, and dakhine is understood as a dish that feeds a household well without costing much. It is also known as dakhine mbeup, and its closest relative is maafe, the peanut stew of the wider Mandinka region, from which dakhine differs by cooking the rice in the peanut sauce rather than serving the two separately. The rice matters. Senegalese cooks use a broken rice and take it to al dente rather than soft, so the grains stay distinct in a sauce that is deliberately kept loose. A dakhine that has gone dry is considered a failure. It is spiced with enough chilli that some Senegalese find it heavy for an evening meal, which is a complaint people make about a dish they nonetheless keep making.
I had to walk to the African shop down the road just to get proper smooth peanut paste for this, no sweet peanut butter from Tesco sha! Cooking that tomato paste down for 7 minutes until it turned dark red brought out all the right aromas. Reminds me so much of the version my Senegalese neighbor made for us years ago. E sweet well well o.