Torborgee

As tradition built it

Serves 5. About 2 hours 30 minutes.

Ingredients

The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.

• 4 bags frozen steamed bitterballs
• 720 to 960ml water
• dry fish and meat, of your choice
• to taste salt and seasonings
• 1 small, optional hot pepper
• 1 small onion, sliced
• 480ml palm oil
• 1 tsp Liberian country soda (bicarbonate)
• 1 tsp water, for the soda

To serve

• to serve rice

Method

1. Rinse the bitterballs well and put them in the pot.
2. Add the water with the meat and dry fish and boil over a medium high heat 30 minutes, until tender.
3. Lift everything out and keep the broth. Set the bitterballs and the meat aside apart.
4. Blend the bitterballs briefly, under a minute, keeping some texture.
5. Return the broth to the pot over a medium high heat. Add the seasonings, pepper, onion and bitterballs and stir all the time for 30 to 45 minutes.
6. Stir in the palm oil gently.
7. On a low heat, mix the country soda with the teaspoon of water and add it carefully; it foams for a moment.
8. Return the meat and fish, check the seasoning, rest 10 minutes, and serve with rice.

Notes

The recipe is Angie's, of Okra Pantry, a Liberian cook; its list says half a gallon of oil and its method two cups, and the method is followed. Her beans torborgee boils red cow peas an hour, simmers them 45 minutes in the meat broth, and finishes with palm oil and bicarbonate the same way.

What a modern chef changes

The fermented oil sourced and used for what it specifically is, not treated as an off-brand palm oil

Method

1. Buy torborgee specifically, country-labelled where possible, rather than substituting more fresh palm oil and more smoked fish to approximate it. The fermentation itself, not just the smoke, is what gives the dish its particular depth, and fresh palm oil cannot be pushed into tasting like it no matter how much smoked protein is added.
2. Let the bitterness stand. This dish is not a fault to be corrected toward sweetness; its whole identity is the deliberate, controlled bitterness of the fermented oil against the protein.