Recettes Côte d'Ivoire

Ivorian Jollof Rice

Ivorian jollof is the Francophone entry in a dish the Anglophone countries argue about most loudly. It carries the same tomato base as its neighbours and seasons it with curry powder, thyme, ginger, garlic and scotch bonnet, and it commonly cooks the cabbage and carrots in the pot with the rice rather than serving them separately. Côte d'Ivoire calls it jollof, and the wider Francophone West African name for the family is riz gras, meaning fat rice. That name describes the method accurately: rice cooked in an oil rich tomato broth until it takes all of it up. In Côte d'Ivoire the dish belongs to the same occasions it does everywhere else in the region, which is to say weddings, funerals, naming ceremonies and any gathering that expects to feed a crowd from one pot. The origin is not seriously disputed by anyone who looks into it. Jollof descends from the rice tradition of the Senegambian coast, associated with the Jolof polity that held parts of present day Senegal and the Gambia between roughly 1350 and 1549, in a region documented as the Rice Coast for the grains grown along the Senegal River. One account traces its spread through the Djula traders of the Mali empire. Neither Nigeria nor Ghana invented it, which neither country lets get in the way of the argument.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

1 hrMediumCôte d'Ivoire

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook

Placali

Placali is fermented cassava paste, cooked to a smooth elastic mass and eaten with soup. It is one of the principal swallows of Côte d'Ivoire, and it is also eaten in Togo, where it is known as agbelima koumè. The fermentation is what separates it from the many other cassava preparations of the region. Cassava is grated, crushed and left for two days before any cooking, and the acidity that develops gives placali a distinct sourness that plain cassava fufu does not have. The texture is looser and stickier than pounded fufu, and it is deliberately kept that way: the amount of water left in before cooking decides how soft the finished placali will be, and Ivorian cooks adjust it to preference. Cassava reached West Africa from South America through Portuguese Atlantic trade, and Côte d'Ivoire has built an unusually large part of its food on it. Attiéké, the fermented cassava couscous, gari and tapioca all come from the same root, and placali sits alongside them as the swallow form. It is eaten with palm nut soup, okra sauce or kpala, and the pairing with a rich palm based soup is the one most associated with it.

50 minMediumCôte d'Ivoire · Ivoirian

Recette de AnthonyJ · Africook

Ivorian Alloco Recipe and Braised Chicken

Alloco is fried plantain, and the name comes from the Baoulé, one of the large Akan groups of eastern Côte d'Ivoire, whose word loko described a plantain that had ripened. That etymology tells you what matters most about the dish: the ripeness of the fruit. Plantain is a staple across the humid West African belt and fried plantain exists everywhere in it under different names. Benin and Nigeria call it dodo, Ghana has kelewele, Togo has amadan, Congo has makemba. What sets alloco apart is not the plantain but the company it keeps: a fierce sauce de piment, and grilled fish, braised chicken or eggs alongside. It has its own building. The Allocodrome in the Cocody district of Abidjan grew up in the mid 1980s around a cluster of street vendors, mostly women, who were already selling alloco to passers by, and it is now an open air institution where people go to eat, talk and watch the street. Very few dishes anywhere have a place named after them. Getting the plantain right is the whole technique: somewhere between semi ripe and ripe, yellow with black spots but not black all over, so it caramelises without collapsing into sweetness.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

50 minEasyCôte d'Ivoire · Ivoirian

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook

West African Banana Fritters (Klako, Krakro)

Klako, also written krakro, is a West African fritter made from mashed ripe plantain, and it is the plantain rather than the banana that matters. Ripe plantain has the sweetness and the starch to hold a fritter together; ordinary banana turns to liquid. The recipe here is savoury, seasoned with ginger, garlic, paprika and cayenne, which is the version most commonly eaten across Côte d'Ivoire, Togo and Ghana. That savoury treatment is worth stating clearly, because the sweet version is what most people expect from anything called a banana fritter. Both exist. Sweet versions with sugar, egg and milk are made across the region and across the Caribbean, and the two have travelled together, which is no accident: the same cooking crossed the Atlantic with enslaved West Africans, and Caribbean banana fritters are a direct relation rather than a coincidence. Plantain is abundant across the humid West African belt and very little of it is wasted. Fritters are one of several answers to fruit that has ripened past the point of frying in slices, alongside kelewele, the spiced fried plantain cubes of Ghana, and the many plantain and flour combinations across the region. They are made at home, sold at roadside stands, and eaten hot with the fingers, which is when they are at their best.

★★★★★Les mieux notées

30 minEasyCôte d'Ivoire

Recette de Cuisine228 · Africook