Mafé

As tradition built it

Serves 6. About 1 hour.

Ingredients

• 1 kg chicken or beef, in pieces
• 2 onions, chopped
• 400 g tomatoes, crushed
• 300 g groundnut paste
• 500 ml water or stock
• 1 scotch bonnet, whole

Method

1. Brown the meat, remove, and soften the onion in the same fat.
2. Add the tomato and cook down.
3. Whisk the groundnut paste with a little of the water to loosen it, then stir it into the pot.
4. Fry the paste out over low heat until the oil visibly separates and the paste darkens. Do not rush this stage.
5. Return the meat, add the remaining water and the whole scotch bonnet, and simmer until the meat is tender and the sauce has thickened to a glossy coat.

What a modern chef changes

The emulsion break and rebuild made deliberate

Rung 3

Method

1. Break it properly before you rebuild it. Rung 3: the raw paste's green aldehyde notes, the same compounds responsible for rancidity, only cook off once the oil has visibly separated and Maillard browning has coloured the paste. Skipping this leaves the sauce tasting of raw peanut and water no matter how long you simmer afterwards.
2. Rebuild the emulsion in controlled stages, adding stock a little at a time and letting it re-emulsify before the next addition, rather than dumping all the liquid in at once.
3. A quiet nod to Sacko's Paris kitchen: a small amount of white miso added at the break stage supplies a second glutamate source alongside the groundnut's own, without announcing itself as anything other than a deeper sauce.