Recettes Cameroon

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.

MediumCameroon · African

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

EasyCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

HardCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook

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.

MediumCameroon

Recette de Blessing · Africook