Central Africa · Volume 08, The Forest Larder
Mbinzo ya mayebo
Kasai and Congo-Brazzaville
Illustration
- Time
- 45 minutes
- Researched
- Researched from 103 sources in the brief
Caterpillars are not an exotic curiosity here and this chapter will not present them as one. They are ordinary market goods eaten across the basin, and their share of the plate grew from the late 1970s as bushmeat became scarcer and forests degraded. They are also on fine dining menus now: Archi Dimosi's vol-au-vent with mbinzo sauce, and Zaire's caterpillar sauce, are the two most-photographed Congolese restaurant dishes of the last two years. Congo-Brazzaville pairs them with wild mushrooms as mbinzo ya mayebo, which is the version given here.
As tradition built it
Serves 4. About 45 minutes.
Ingredients
- 900 g caterpillars (mbinzo), rehydrated if dried
- 2 to 3 tomatoes
- 1 onion
- 1 red chilli
- 2 to 4 tbsp red palm oil
- 2 tbsp groundnut paste
- as needed, to taste water, salt
- 1 handful, optional a handful of dried wild mushrooms, for the mayebo version
Method
- Crush the tomatoes, onion and red chilli together to a coarse paste.
- Fry that paste in the red palm oil until it darkens and thickens.
- Dilute the groundnut paste with water until it pours, and add it.
- Add the caterpillars (mbinzo) and, if using, a handful of dried wild mushrooms, soaked, and their strained liquor.
- Simmer 30 minutes. Salt at the end.
Notes
After a Kasai method recorded in a Congolese recipe collection.
The honest substitution, stated plainly. Dried caterpillars are sold in some Congolese shops in London, on West Green Road and in Peckham, and no nationwide UK online source could be verified. For most British readers the substitution is a deeply umami dried mushroom base, which is exactly what kilebu, the mushroom and peanut butter preparation on Zaire's menu, already licenses. It is a substitution and this chapter says so rather than dressing it up.
What a modern chef changes
A dark mushroom base, the groundnut emulsified properly, and a pastry case
Rungs 3, 4 and 6
Method
- Build on a mushroom and smoked fish double stock. 30 g dried shiitake or porcini, 20 g dried Congolese wild mushrooms if you can get them, plus 100 g smoked fish, held at 70°C for 40 minutes and strained. Rung 3. This is where the depth comes from and it is why the substitute version works at all.
- Emulsify the groundnut instead of stirring it in. Slacken the paste with hot stock to a smooth cream before it meets the pan, then add it in three additions below a simmer, stirring each in fully. Groundnut paste dropped into a boiling sauce splits into oil and grit, and that is the difference between this and the greasy version.
- Fry the caterpillars separately and add them late. Dry-fry until the edges crisp, then fold in for the last three minutes. They are a texture ingredient and thirty minutes of simmering takes that away. Same for mushrooms.
- Put it in a case. Rung 6, and Dimosi's move exactly. A sweet potato pastry vol-au-vent, or a disc of cassava crisp under a spoonful of the sauce. A soft brown sauce needs an edge, and the Kinshasa answer is a pastry one.