West Africa · Volume 01, The Wolof-Mandinka World
Soupou kandja
The okra and palm oil sauce, the clearest kinship link between the Wolof-Serer kitchen and Casamance
Illustration
- Time
- 30 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 160 sources in the brief
- Reviewed
- Awaiting a reader from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Awaiting a cook report
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 500 g okra, topped and chopped
- 60 ml red palm oil
- 1 onion, garlic
- 300 g fish and shellfish pieces
- 1 chilli, whole
- 20 g dried shrimp powder
- 1 stock cube
Method
- Soften the onion and garlic in the palm oil until translucent.
- Add the fish and shellfish, the whole chilli and the shrimp powder, with a little water, and simmer about 10 minutes.
- Fold through the chopped okra, stock cube, salt and pepper, and finish until thick and ropey with released mucilage.
- Serve over white rice.
What a modern chef changes
The mucilage managed, not fought
Rung 4's logic applied to a different vegetable
Method
- Add the okra last and cook it briefly. Prolonged heat destroys the draw this dish exists for.
- 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.
- Two-stage palm oil, as in benachin: early for depth, a final measure stirred through off the heat for colour.