Print |
Smoked threadfin on palm nut sauce
Henriette gives us the opportunity to discover Mpongwe cuisine by sharing a recipe she holds from her grandmother:
Smoked threadfin on palm nut sauce.
Threadfin isn’t as thin as it sounds: a delicious fish you find along the African coast between Senegal and Congo. It is valued for its white flesh, so rich it was often spared for the boat captain. No threadfin around? Simply use something similar; sea bass would do.
As for palm nut, the basic ingredient to this recipe, it’s actually a pulpy kind of stone fruit that grows on the African oil palm. Unlike the oil extracted from it, its flesh is rich in β-Carotene (the same antioxidant as in carrots) and linoleic acid (n−6 fatty acid).
Here are the basic lines of the recipe, bearing in mind that, as every talented cook, Henriette appears not to be measuring anything, leaving you and us to work out quantities and cooking times!
Watch all our videos in Mpongwe
Linguist : Patrick Mouguiama-Daouda
Image and sound : Muriel Lutz
Editing : Caroline Laurent
To make this at home
Ingredients:
Fish: Smoked threadfin
Vegetables: Eggplants and gumbos
For the sauce: Palm nuts
Salt
Recipe:
– Throw the palm nuts in a pot full of water. Boil, cover and cook.
– Take nuts out of the water, grind. Add water to extract the sap and drain twice to obtain the sauce. Then put back on the fire, salt (taste!) and let the sauce thicken.
– Soak the fish – big pieces – in fresh water.
– Cut the eggplants and gumbos to mouthfuls, add to sauce.
– Add the fish. Cook on low heat without covering.
Vegies cooked, sauce thickened, kitchen smelling nice? Done!