West Africa · Volume 06, The Atlantic Islands
Omelete à moda da terra
São Tomé
Illustration
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 115 sources in the brief
The smallest dish in the volume and the one that states its thesis most economically. There is no technique here to admire, and that is the point. Take away the leaf and the palm oil and this is a Portuguese omelette; put them back and it is unmistakably Santomean, and nothing else has changed. Creolisation here is rarely a new method. It is a European method with two African ingredients in it, and the ingredients are load-bearing.
As tradition built it
Serves 1 to 2. 10 minutes.
Ingredients
The method as the tradition gives it, ingredients named but not yet weighed. Quantities follow as we verify them, lead dishes first.
- 3 eggs
- 3 micoco leaves, finely chopped
- a little a little onion, finely chopped
- 2 to 3 tbsp red palm oil
- to taste salt, black pepper
- crushed deboned smoked fish, optional
Method
- Beat the eggs with salt and pepper.
- Stir in the chopped micoco, the onion and the smoked fish if using.
- Heat the palm oil in a pan and pour the mixture in.
- Fry until set, turning once.
Notes
After Sabores de São Tomé e Príncipe.
An honesty note, and it is the note Volume Four had to make about wagashi. Micoco is not botanically identified in any source I could retrieve, and it is not sold in Britain under any name. What follows is an approximation of the right character, and it is not omelete à moda da terra.
What a modern chef changes
An honest substitution, the palm oil protected, and the fish used properly
Rungs 2 and 3
Method
- For the leaf, use chopped celery leaf and lovage, or young lovage alone, at about 3 g total. That gives the green, faintly medicinal, faintly bitter register the Santomean sources imply when they place micoco alongside erva mosquito. It is not micoco.
- Do not fry in the palm oil. Rung 2 as a rule. Cook the omelette in a neutral fat, and fold 2 tablespoons of unheated palm oil through the beaten egg, with a teaspoon spooned over at the table. All the colour and all the aroma, none of it destroyed by two minutes in a hot pan. The result is a deeper orange than the fried version, not a paler one.
- Toast the smoked fish separately and add it at the end. Sixty seconds in a dry pan until it smells of smoke again, then folded in off the heat. Rung 3: you are adding a top note, not extracting fish into egg. Serve it with bread and a malagueta vinegar, and treat it as a whole small meal, which is what it is on the island.
Notes
Part Four