Lafidi

As tradition built it

Serves 4. About 35 minutes.

Ingredients

The vegetables

• 2 to 3 aubergines
• 7 okra
• 1 chilli
• to cover salted water

The prawns

• 3 to 4 tbsp red palm oil
• 1 onion, sliced
• 150 to 200g prawns, peeled
• to taste salt
• ½ stock cube

To serve

• to serve rice
• to serve soumbala

Method

1. Simmer the aubergines, okra and chilli in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes.
2. Meanwhile fry the onion in the palm oil, add the prawns with salt, and cook until pink.
3. Drain the vegetables well and pound them in a mortar, or blend them, until even, about 5 minutes.
4. Mix in the prawns and onion and the stock cube, and check the salt.
5. Serve hot over the rice, with plenty of soumbala on top.

Notes

The recipe is Sali Gourmande's. Slow Food and FAO's Guinea-Bissau collection gives the Fula fúti, the same dish under its Peul name: the okra and small bitter aubergines boiled 15 minutes and pounded, raw palm oil stirred in off the heat, and the rice served with sorrel in the middle and pounded nététou, dried chilli and dried fish at the sides.

What a modern chef changes

The oyster-spoon service Chef Yaya Barry uses in Conakry, and the crayfish-and-bonga umami base from Rung 6

Rung 6

Method

1. Build a concentrated smoked bonga and crayfish stock separately, and use it to cook the okra and aubergine rather than plain water, doubling the savoury depth without doubling the salt.
2. Serve a small, refined portion as a starter taste rather than a full breakfast bowl, the exact move Barry and Touré make with tô in Conakry: this dish translates cleanly to a smaller format because its whole appeal is texture and depth, not volume.
3. Keep the okra's cook time honest. Rushing it gives you crunch without the ropey draw the dish depends on.