Soupou kandja

As tradition built it

Serves 5 to 6. About 1 hour 50 minutes.

Ingredients

The pot

• 1kg veal shank, in medium pieces
• 1.5 litres water
• to taste salt
• 750g okra
• 1 diakhato (bitter aubergine)
• 1 yet (dried sea snail)
• 1 guedj (fermented dried fish)
• 1 smoked fish
• 250g prawns, peeled
• 1 fresh chilli
• 250ml palm oil

The nokoss

• 1 onion
• 4 cloves garlic
• 1 green chilli
• 1 spring onion
• 1 piece nététou (fermented néré seed)

Method

1. Boil the meat in the salted water over a medium heat for 45 minutes.
2. Top the okra, cut it, and pound or blend it lightly.
3. For the nokoss, pound or blend the onion, garlic, green chilli, spring onion and nététou together.
4. Add the diakhato, yet, guedj and smoked fish to the pot.
5. Add the okra and cook 30 minutes.
6. Add the nokoss, the prawns and the fresh chilli, and season lightly.
7. Add the palm oil and simmer 15 minutes, until the oil rises to the top.
8. Taste for seasoning and serve with white rice.

Notes

The recipe is Aïssatou Mbaye's, of Aïstou Cuisine, her son's favourite dish; the piece of nététou is from Lamine Faye's recipe for Louma by Seggfaye. Faye starts the sauce in the palm oil, crumbling the yet and nététou into it to melt for 3 to 4 minutes before the okra goes in, and cooks the okra 30 to 40 minutes on a low heat with whole chillies laid on top. Au Sénégal's version adds crabs, fresh fish and a spoon of tomato concentrate.

What a modern chef changes

The mucilage managed, not fought

Rung 4's logic applied to a different vegetable

Method

1. Add the okra last and cook it briefly. Prolonged heat destroys the draw this dish exists for.
2. Do not add acid until the very end, if at all. Mild alkalinity from the guedj and the shrimp base preserves the ropy texture; acid breaks it down.
3. Two-stage palm oil, as in benachin: early for depth, a final measure stirred through off the heat for colour.