Meal 67: Ghana

When I asked for fermented cornflour at Owa Afrikan Market, the kindly shopkeeper replied, "Kenkey? Oh, that's from Ghana. We're a Nigerian store!" I didn't have much better luck at Diaby African Market, which is run by shopkeepers from Cote d'Ivoire who are equally friendly but equally devoid of kenkey. Just as I'd begun to grow a bit fatigued of what seem to be a limited range of very common African staples -- smoked fish, palm oil, cassava, yam, plantain, peanuts -- I was so happy to discover first-hand some real regional variation that I quickly overcame the disappointment of not finding what I was looking for. (Plus, as you'll see below, I got creative and found my way around it.)

Our guest of honor was Jessica, whose family is from Ghana and spent several years there. She cooked up some amazing spicy plantains! Also on hand were Anthony, Angad, Melanie, Christen, and Ignacio.

Shito | Dried shrimp pepper sauce | Recipe

In addition to being a word that makes any English speaker giggle, shito means hot pepper. It also refers, by synecdoche, to any spicy sauce, whether fresh or preserved. The fresh version, on the right, is so simple as to not require a recipe (onion, tomato, hot pepper, salt, pepper, food processor, done), while this one is both more complex and also not as spicy, as the bulk of the volume is actually pungent dried shrimp. As far as I can tell, this condiment, which can also go by the confusing name "black pepper," is like the ketchup of Ghana. It goes well with dishes made of red palm oil and other strong flavors, adding both depth and zing, but I made the mistake a few days later of adding it to a French-style braised chicken and that wasn't the beset combo.

Kenkey | Steamed fermented corn dumplings | Recipe

Since I couldn't find the pre-fermented cornflour, I had to figure out how to make it myself. The traditional method is to simply mix some cornflour and water, leave it for a few days, and let the naturally-occurring yeast and bacteria in the air land and multiply. Unfortunately, whenever I've done that in New York, whatever lands on the surface makes it smell like bad cheese and taste worse. But I had an idea! The recipe I used for injera suggested using a sourdough starter to give it the right microbes, beating the stuff in the air to the punch. So I mixed in a bit of my sourdough starter with the corn, and the next day, I had delightfully sour corn mush. After that, I followed the recipe to heat the mush and then steam it, though I might have cooked it too long because it came out rather firm. A nice, tangy starch that's different from the usual fufu!

Grilled Tilapia | Recipe

Similar to what I made for the Cote d'Ivoire meal, I slashed up some tilapia, marinated it with an onion-chili-ginger mixture, and grilled it up. The flesh didn't turn out as well and kind of came off the bone as much rather than firm flesh. Maybe I didn't have the grill up high enough. But it was definitely tasty, and went well with the kenkey.

Palaver Sauce | Spinach stew | Recipe

Why this stew of greens, red palm oil and peanut butter is named for the Portuguese word for a discussion or a talk is the subject of much speculation and no conclusion. It's stranger still to me because the core ingredients show no influence of European or new world foods. In any event, I made this with spinach rather than trying to make a hard chunk of long-frostbitten greens work, and used the ubiquitous dry-smoked fish for flavoring. Happily, I also have an African basil plant growing in the back yard, which Jessica confirmed is the right seasoning for this dish. This strongly-flavored and -textured stew had a good foil in some grilled yam.

Kelewele | Spicy plantain bits

Ignore anything I said above and just concentrate on this part. I followed Jessica's instructions to get plantains with blackened skin, they were so ripe I had to keep them outside to avoid keeping the fruit flies inside! She showed up with a marinade of ginger, chili, and citrus, cut the plantains into little pieces, and marinated them. Then she fried them to within an inch of burning, so they were so amazingly sweet and caramelized yet still gingery and tangy and a bit spicy. This was by far the hit of the meal!

Jessica also brought a delicious ginger drink. Once again, thanks to her for making our meal so special and authentic!

Laura apologizes for the quality of the photos, the lens she normally uses for food photography needs repair.

Meal 51: Dominican Republic

Another Thanksgiving weekend, another nosh in San Francisco!  To go with the gorgeous weather, the calendar aligned on Dominican Republic, the second-largest country of the Caribbean. While the Bay Area is no stranger to foods from Spanish-speaking lands, there's few Caribbeans around, so these dishes made for something more of a novelty here than they would have been in Dominican-immigrant-heavy New York.

Thanks to the kind folks at Hattery, I had a big kitchen to discover the intriguing Dominican way of cooking, which was just, well, different. I used a grand total of one onion with none of that going into the stew, scrubbed every cube of meat with lime halves, and boiled rice at full hilt rather than gently simmering. And that's not even mentioning the oddness of a dessert built around kidney beans.

Around the table are Jon, Bryan, Alley, Suj, Drew, Greg, Emily, Shilpi, and my mom and dad! It was great to catch up with three friends in town from Portland, and of course to share the joy with my parents, cousin, and future cousin-in-law.

Sancocho de siete carnes | Seven-meat stew | Recipe

Can you even name seven meats? Well, it's kinda cheating since there are actually four types of pork (cubes, ribs, ham hocks, and longaniza sausage), plus beef, chicken, and goat. This is a truly rustic stew, with little more than meats plus some whole chunks of vegetables. The trick is putting in the longer-cooking items first, and gradually building up the pot, and getting a good longaniza since that's where the spices will come from.

The result was a really satisfying stew, with tender and flavorful chunks of meat and a sauce worth spooning on top of everything. Given the fun textures of the different root vegetables, it's worth making the effort to find them, especially the true yam, which isn't the same as a sweet potato. If you make this recipe, just be sure to give yourself plenty of prep time, it takes longer than you think to scrub each and every piece of meat! Or if you don't, at least take away the lesson to cut whole ears of corn into rounds, it's a fun addition and much more dramatic than tossing in individual kernels.

Guandules con coco | Pigeon peas in coconut milk | Recipe

Pigeon peas don't seem like much more than pale little lumps when dry, but once cooked they exhibit a rich caramel color and an unexpected smoky taste. They're often served in rice, much like rice and beans, but there's more you can do. This vegetarian preparation uses coconut milk and squash to give a more tropical feel. I'm kicking myself for neglecting to eat the final version, but reports are that even the carnivores thought this was a good dish.

Arroz blanco | White rice | Recipe

The goal with Dominican rice is to get concón, layers of crispiness mixed in with loose, fluffy kernels. Well, I got the loose and fluffy part all right, but nothing approaching crispy. Maybe I didn't let the oil sear the bottom of the pot long enough, or maybe that huge pot was just too big to deal with. Anyway, the rice was plenty fine, and served valiantly to sop up the sauce.

Jugo de tamarindo | Tamarind juice | Recipe

No photo, but imagine a pitcher full of brown liquid and you're set. This recipe is for if you've thought ahead. If you're like me, and you're starting from whole tamarind pods, first peel them (don't need to be obsessive over getting every last bit of peel), cover with water at about six times the volume of the nuts, bring to boil, and simmer for 15 minutes. Place a chinois or strainer over a bowl, dump the pot into the strainer, and use a wooden spoon to press the pulp onto the edges until the pulp is all squeezed through and into the bowl and only the seeds remain which you then throw out. Mix sugar into the still-warm juice, chill, enjoy the distinctive tang. For a really good time, make a cavarindo: half tamarind juice, half cava. (Watch out, it'll foam up like a root beer float!)

Habichuelas con dulce | Sweet bean soup | Recipe

A chilled soup made of pureed kidney beans and chunks of sweet potato doesn't exactly sound like dessert, but we were all pleasantly surprised by how tasty this inventive dish is. With evaporated and coconut milks, it's got a nice but not excessive milky richness, and the spices make it feel vaguely Christmasy. If you're adventurous, it's worth trying!

Ponche de ron | Egg nog | Recipe

One of the few scenes from the Jetsons I remember is the Christmas special, in which Rosie the Robot creates egg nog by mixing one egg and one "nog." Well, two decades later, I've finally made it — or, at least, the Dominican version — and while I can affirm that egg nog indeed has eggs, the "nog" part of it is a bit more complicated, in this case three types of milk plus sugar and spices, all cooked over a bain marie. But gosh it was tasty, not unctuous like the stuff in a carton, but really smooth sippin', and just the right density to warmly embrace the rum and make you forget you've eaten too much and shouldn't put any more in your belly.

So that does it for the D's! Next weekend we head due south to Ecuador. Thanks again to the kind folks at the Hattery for opening their space to us!

Meal 47: Democratic Republic of the Congo

What a special night! 75 guests, most of whom had never been to a Nosh before, gathered in the beautiful ballroom at Hostelling International on the Upper West Side, for a meal of classic Congolese dishes.

The idea came from Ari, the community engagement manager at the hostel, who saw our email on The Listserve and reached out to see if we might want to do a Nosh with them. With a big venue and kitchen, we decided to align it with World Food Day and make it a big fundraising opportunity...and at the end of the evening, that made for $1,400, or 5,600 meals to people in need! According to the WFP, the Democratic Republic of the Congo — the former Zaire — ranks lowest in the world for human development and hunger, and 70% have inadequate food. Needless to say, a rich and tasty meal like ours, with plenty of meats, vegetables, and oil, is far beyond the reach of most Congolese.

It turns out it would have been hard to find a more convenient neighborhood for cooking the meal. Less than a mile away is a wonderful little African market that had the palmnut sauce, cassava powder, and other specialty goods I needed, sold by a very friendly and enthusiastic proprietor. The manager at the nearby Gristedes let me borrow a shopping cart to haul back all the meat, and the cart proved very handy for hauling back a huge load of greens, plantains, and other produce.

There's no way we could have done this meal without the help of our many volunteers, who helped set up, cook, and clean up. The huge kitchen area comprising four ranges, two sinks, and dozens of pots and frying pans was buzzing with chopping, frying, stirring, and only one having to find the maintenance staff to crank up the ventilation hoods. Huge thanks to everyone who pitched in! And we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Ari and the rest of the staff at the hostel who were incredibly friendly and accommodating.

Arachides rôties | Roasted peanuts

These freshly shelled peanuts came in little hand-tied baggies, a dollar a piece. So simple to throw them in a hot, dry frying pan, shake 'em around for a few minutes until they start to darken, then toss in a bowl with a little salt. Great as a snack or a topping.

Poulet mwamba | Chicken in palmnut sauce | Recipe

Not only did we cook forty pounds of dark-meat chicken, but to get it to cook faster (and to follow the recipe), we had to cut it into bite-sized pieces. Turns out I learned the hard, and potentially stupid, way that a glass cutting board isn't meant for cleaver-whacking:

Fifteen minutes later and Laura was back with a cutting board, I kept whacking away at chicken limbs, and Jason set to work browning the hundreds of chunks in five frying pans of red palm oil across two stovetops, his camera slung across his shoulder like a bandolier.

Ari, our incredibly gracious host at Hostelling International, smiled wistfully as he entered the kitchen. "It's so comforting that you're making the hostel smell like palm oil!" Once you know that rich smell, something kind of at the intersection of thick lotion, paprika and mineral oil but in a good way, it's hard to forget. Turns out, we used not just the oil, but also the thick pulp rendered from crushing palm nuts. Thinned a bit with some water, and livened up with salt and chilies plus onions and garlic sauteed in the pans after browning the chicken, it all cooked up into two big pots worth of thick and very rich stew, a very stick-to-your-ribs endeavor. We also made a vegetarian version, with eggplant and zucchini and an extra dose of onions, which was arguably tastier than the chicken version.

Boeuf sauce arachide | Beef in peanut sauce | Recipe

"Goober," the folksy nickname for the peanut, comes from the Kikongo name for the groundnut, nguba. You can make a tasty peanut sauce with just about any meat, and in fact I'd intended to make it with goat but I couldn't find that in my short shopping time, so beef it was. As you can see, the list of ingredients is very simple, but the result is really satisfying and complete. I picked up some surprisingly flavorful chili powder from Mali, maybe that did the trick. Whatever the reason, there was certainly none left!

Bitekuteku | Callaloo greens | Recipe

I did a whole lot of research around this one. I wasn't relishing making yet another dish from frozen cassava greens, so I was happy to see this dish for a different type of green. But I wasn't confident I'd be able to find it fresh. I was all prepared to substitute collards or chard, but lo and behold, the produce shop across the corner from the hostel had it! It's yet another of those foods that crossed the Atlantic in the slave trade, and somehow it ended up with the name "callaloo." Anyway, I cleared them out of all 16 bunches.

Who knew how much labor callaloo requires? The stems are pretty tough, but the leaves are haphazardly arranged, so removing them takes a whole lot of labor, for which Alex and her support crew deserve particular praise. Then you have to blanch them in boiling water with baking soda, and even with two pots going at a time, that took a while. We got a head start on the timing by sauteeing the green onions and eggplant ahead of time and dropping in the greens. Happily, it was really tasty, and the big crowd made fast work of it.

Fufu | "Stiff porridge"

Practice is starting to make perfect! I'm finally starting to get the hang of it, I think. This time we used a blend of corn and cassava flours, used the big-ass paddle I bought a few months ago, and I recruited Sarah's strong arms and energy to mix it up. She stirred a small amount into the big pot of just-boiled water, then added more of alternating flours until it got kinda thick, then stirring like mad until it got really thick. (Jessica also helpfully suggested that one person hold the pot steady while another grips the paddle with both hands and uses upward motion against the side of the pot to smooth out lumps.) The fufu turned out thick enough to grab with your hands, and tasted like mostly nothing...so, success! Also, it just ran out at the end of the evening, so maybe it's dumb luck but I'm glad we made the right amount.

Pili pili | Hot sauce | Recipe

This one's even simpler than the hot sauce for Comoros. Seeded hot peppers, onion, garlic, and a bit of oil. Simmer for an hour. Done. Quite spicy, richly flavorful, crowd pleaser. I thought I was being responsible by washing my hands like 20 times after cutting all the scotch bonnets, and I'm glad I did. However, I only gave the pot a standard cleaning — and the next morning's oatmeal turned out spicy! Lesson learned. Wash everything a lot after making hot sauce.

Bananes plantains au four | Baked plantains

Fried plantains are always the tastiest. But it takes a lot of work and time and makes a royal mess, as we discovered for the Cameroonean meal. So, we got most of the fun for about 10% of the work by simply peeling the plantains, slicing them in half, and baking the off for a half hour. Thanks to the abundantly equipped kitchen, we had six trays going across three ovens! And every last plantain was gobbled up.

What made us perhaps the happiest from this meal, even beyond the beautiful space and the people who went back for thirds and the money raised, was that most people stayed far longer than they had to, making new friends around the dinner table. Having made it just about a quarter of the way through the nations of the world, it's the joy of combining adventure and community that has become so motivating!

Stay tuned for our post from Denmark!

Photos by Jason Falchook, Chrys Wu, and Laura Hadden. 

Meal 41: Côte D'Ivoire

Am I getting better at cooking African food, or is Ivorian cuisine just that good? Probably more the latter, but still, this was probably our best sub-Saharan meal yet. The flavors were so well-balanced, the spice delightful and not overwhelming, and the textures pleasant. What's more, with the exception of a few ingredients that you could probably cleverly work your way around, you can find these ingredients in a standard Western supermarket, so if you've been looking to try cooking African food, this is a good start.

Other than the New World staples like cassava and chilies which have become so common over Africa that most people probably don't know they were brought there, this meal shows essentially no European influence. Jessica, who lived in Côte D'Ivoire during high school, notes that although Ivorians are the world leaders in cacao production and also grow a lot of coffee, they consume almost none of either.

In contrast to the day before which was gross and rainy, we were blessed with amazing evening weather. Around the table were Jessica, Anthony, Miriam, Flonia, Natalie, Diana, Anna, and David.

Tilapia braisé | Grilled tilapia | Recipe: French, English translation

  The coast is so much a part of the country's identity that it's in the name! So it was only appropriate to cook some fish. I had several options available, including dorado and hogfish, but I went with tilapia because I could buy it live from a tank in Sunset Park. Doesn't get fresher than that!

As with last week's Congolese quail, the marinade was a blend of garlic, ginger, onions, and hot pepper, although this time I used a blender rather than crushing it. And also the same, this grilling style calls for cutting deep slashes in the meat to allow more of the marinade to permeate. But what's different is what comes afterwards: throwing onions and tomatoes marinated in a vinaigrette straight on the grill! As you can see from the photo I used a mesh, otherwise it would have all fallen through. It all made for a delicious mess, and I'm glad I got three fish, because it all got snapped up!

Kedjenou | Chicken and vegetable stew | Recipe

I have to admit I was a bit suspicious of the value of this stew, since it doesn't feature any ingredients you couldn't find at a Walmart with a produce section, but several sources pointed to it being a well-known Ivorian dish so I took the plunge. I did start with the heat too low, because after the prescribed hour and a half with the lid shut, the meat was still pink, but I turned it up to medium for another half hour. How rewarded we were! The flavors blended so delightfully and the chicken was really tender. Maybe the super-slow start helped?

Sauce arachide | Peanut sauce | Recipe

I swear it tasted way better than it looks, what you see here is the red palm oil having separated. This recipe comes by way of my colleague Christiaan! I found this article when I was looking for an Ivorian peanut sauce, and it turns out that he did Peace Corps there. In fact, he's something of a peanut sauce impresario, he's even hosted a cook-off! He also helped make sure that the rest of the meal seemed on-track.

I left out the chicken from this recipe since we had it in another dish, and instead upped the crushed dried shrimp. I also halved the number of peppers and fished them out partway through, in the interest of keeping it less than fiery. But it's a damn good recipe and it would go well on so many things.

Attiéké | Cassava couscous | Preparation

Another African country that doesn't just do fufu, hooray! This one's pretty distinctive, a couscous that's traditionally made by hand out of cassava. Christiaan doubted I'd find it in the states, but my little favorite African market has it in frozen three-pound balls. You could really do fine using regular couscous, but the texture would be a bit different. Also, I like the preparation as (passionately!) described in the link, including a bit of vinegar and bouillon for flavor.

Aloco | Fried plantain

It's hard to make a bad fried plantain, but apparently you can always improve. I biked a little farther than I normally go on my shopping jaunts to Sunset Park, and among dozens of produce shops found Marketa Los Fernandez. This place was narrow and crowded, and was holding its own a block from a supermarket, a very good sign. But the best part was the plantain selection: not only green and yellow, but also black! The stuff of legend! I snapped up every one I could find, cut them up in wedges as shown, fried them in red palm oil, and, well, yum. (There's supposed to be a spicy tomato-onion sauce with them, but with all the other dishes I just skipped that part.)

Mangues | Mango

Apparently dessert isn't much of a thing, so I cut up some ripe mango, and we passed the bowl around as we ate with dainty cocktail forks.

We're taking the next week off to celebrate our third wedding anniversary at the Newport Folk Festival, and when we're back it's Croatia!

Photos by Laura Hadden, who is really enjoying experiencing the wide variety of African cuisine. 

Meal 40: Congo

The larger better-known of the two countries named after the Congo River is the Democratic Republic of Congo, the former Zaire and previously a Belgian colony, but that shows up in the D's. This meal is from the north side of the river, the Republic of Congo, the former French colony, sometimes known as Congo-Brazzaville after its capital.

Anyway, as you might imagine, it's a bit tricky to find what's distinctively from this country as opposed to its cross-river sibling, both because they eat similar things and also because the similar name makes it hard to search precisely. But I managed! While this is hardly the first time we've encountered cassava leaves, this preparation takes advantage of Congo's coast and throws in fish. And for the first time we're approaching bush meat! Read on for the tasty details.

The threatened thunderstorms never arrived, and it was just a perfect evening on the deck. It was a really fun crowd, with Melvin, Pegi, Alex, Barrak, Hillary, Dan, Jessica, Beni, and Barmey trading stories for hours.

Cailles grillées au piment et au gingembre | Grilled quail with chili-ginger marinade | Recipe: French, English translation

All manner of animals are either hunted or raised in Congo, of which quail is a good example. And this marinade is a good example of the simple, straightforward, and tasty approach that so much African food shows: mash up some onions, garlic, ginger and chilies, toss in some salt and oil, and you've got yourself a marinade. By cutting slits in the meat, more flavor can get in. Then just throw them whole on the grill, turn 'em a few times, and they're really tasty. Don't be scared by the amount of chili pepper in the recipe, since it's a marinade you're only really eating a fraction of what you put in. I would definitely recommend this for even less adventurous meats like chicken; if you don't want to mash it by hand you could make a fine marinade in the blender. If you're making it with quail, just remember that each one weighs barely a quarter-pound, so think of it more as an appetizer at one apiece.

Saka-saka | Cassava leaf stew with mackerel | Recipe: French, English translation

One hazard when cooking the most "authentic" recipes is that they assume you're cooking from the same type of ingredients that you'd find on the ground. But it turns out there's a pretty big difference in cooking fresh and frozen cassava leaves, which I only realized when I found this recipe that was specifically developed for the frozen kind. Turns out you gotta cook it a heck of a lot longer!

Another great improvement over the Burundian and Central African versions of this dish is the addition of fish. These two whole mackerel did a lot for both the flavor and the texture. I also learned a novel technique for removing the bones: put the fish on top of the stew for about ten minutes to heat it up, remove it, and the meat just slides off the spine. Genius!

I did make a few variations on the recipe. The "whole bottle" of red palm oil was ambiguous, I ended up using about half the one-liter bottle I had. I also took two bits from another recipe: I sauteed the onion and garlic in the oil before adding it to the dish, and I crumbled in two little bouillon cubes (equivalent of one American-sized cube) rather than just adding salt. I left out any chilies, and instead passed around some Peri-Peri hot sauce.

Bananes plantains | Green plantains

We're cooking green plantains as starch so often that, just like the rice I also served with the meal, I'm probably going to stop calling them out at some point. But one thing I wanted to point out was advice from my mother: it's so much faster and easier to cook them in the microwave! Give it about two minutes apiece, and they're done.

Mango-ginger-lime sorbet | Recipe

A real Congolese meal would probably end in cut fruit, if anything. But I was itching to make a frozen delight, and had the ingredients on hand, so I made this sorbet. I only had two mangoes rather than the five the recipe calls for, and I tripled the ginger, added an extra lime's worth of zest, and put in some sugar water to compensate. All told, the original recipe is probably more of a crowd-pleaser, but if you like ginger and aren't afraid of bitter, try it my way! Oh, and those red things are pieces of papaya bathed in lime juice.

We're heading around the Gulf of Guinea up to Côte D'Ivoire for our next meal. Joining us for the rest of our journey is our sweet new dog Emmylou, a border collie mix who just joined our family on Friday!

Photos by Laura Hadden, who's looking forward to Emmylou's help eating table scraps.