u/delicatedead

If making Tatale and Aboboi was stepping out of my comfort zone, then making this was launching myself out of my comfort zone head-first! I chose to make Pondu because it seemed like a dish very quintessential of DR Congo, but I was delighted to find that this dish is also known as Saka-Saka in other regions, which felt very apt to make in celebration of the world cup. Pondu is the cassava leaf stew, Fufu is a dough used as a utensil with which to eat the stew (I used a cassava-based Fufu mix as this seemed to be typical of DR Congo), and Makemba are fried plantains.

This dish contained flavours that were truly new to me, which is entirely the point of this challenge! I had wondered when spending almost two hours stewing the cassava leaves (I'll explain why in a moment) whether this dish could be made with spinach or kale as a substitution, but the flavour of the cooked cassava leaf was very deep and earthy and wholly different to any leaf or herb I had tried before. The Fufu was very satisfying to use as a utensil but didn't taste of a lot (though I think that is the point) and the plantain were very tasty - I sprinkled them with salt and sugar which was a really nice break from the very savoury stew.

I chose to follow this recipe for the Pondu, though I substituted the dried smoked fish for tinned smoked mackerel, which I read is a totally valid substitution as tinned fish is often added when making Pondu. Another thing I changed about this recipe is after the initial 30 minutes of boiling the cassava leaves, I chose to discard the water, rinse the leaves, and cook the rest of the dish in fresh water. This is because raw cassava leaves contain cyanogenic glycosides, which can release toxic hydrogen cyanide when metabolised, and many other recipes recommended discarding the water from the first boil to be on the safe side. I then added the blended aromats (which smelt very strongly of cucumber for something which contained no cucumber), added the fish and palm oil and boiled the stew for a further 90 minutes.

My reasoning for substituting the dried fish for tinned mackerel is that the African shop near me only sold dried smoked fish in large quantities - far more than I needed for this recipe - and... I don't really like fish. The whole point of this challenge is to push myself out of my comfort zone, so I chose to add fish as is traditional. If I made this again, I would opt for a fish-less version, as unfortunately it just wasn't for me, though that's totally a personal taste preference! My partner and I still thoroughly enjoyed trying something brand new to us (and the plantain!).

If you are new here, here are the dishes I have made previously:

Krpice sa Zeljem from Croatia

Tatale and Aboboi from Ghana

Arroz Con Pollo from Panama

If you have read this far, please let me know if you think I should cook Mexican food on Sunday night or Monday night, as the game is 1am Monday morning and I can't decide!

Thanks for reading :D

First to address the elephant in the room - I don't think I infused my annatto oil for long enough/well enough which is why my rice turned out a little anaemic. However, I don't think that had a big impact on the flavour (as I think the annatto seeds mostly add colour) and the flavour was fantastic! The briny olives and capers were delicious throughout this savoury chicken rice dish. 10/10, will be making frequently!

Anyway, Arroz con Pollo (rice with chicken) is a dish that exists in lots of Latin American countries, so I did my best to ensure that I was preparing the Panamanian version (Arroz Con Pollo Panameño). This was easier said than done, as every recipe I found had a slight difference from one another, and many said things such as "add whichever vegetables you like" which makes trying to make an 'authentic' version of the dish quite tricky!

I ended up being very type A about it all and making a spreadsheet of ingredients found across multiple recipes to boil it down to the most common shared ingredients and those which made this distinctly Panamanian. This did mean that I had to piece together various recipes to make my own, which was more difficult than e.g. the Croatian dish which I was able to follow from one single recipe.

I found that in order to make this the Panamanian version of Arroz con Pollo, it was important to shred and incorporate the chicken as opposed to serving it alongside the rice, and to use annatto seeds to colour and flavour the dish, as opposed to saffron. I had assumed that annatto seeds were an entirely new ingredient for me, but I was intrigued to find that they are in fact the ingredient that makes Red Leicester red.

The only substitution I had to make was that the sofrito recipe I followed asked for 'ajíes dulce' peppers which I could not find. The recipe suggested I substitute for bell peppers, but I found "small sweet peppers" in Sainsburys and decided they sounded more similar to something called 'dulce'.

Another new ingredient for me in this recipe was culantro. When I first read it, I thought it might be an alternative spelling of cilantro/coriander leaves, but I found that it is actually a cousin of this plant and looks very different (swipe to see my culantro). It is very hard to get Latin American ingredients in the UK but I found that this plant is also called Thai Parsley or Ngò gai when used in South East Asian cooking, so I was able to pick it up from an Asian grocers in town. I am one of those people who thinks coriander leaves taste like soap - and was slightly disappointed to find I have the same aversion to culantro - but I put my big girl pants on and included it in the sofrito anyway and actually alongside the other ingredients I really didn't mind it at all!

Here are some links to recipes I either used or took times, weights and measurements from:

Panamanian sofrito

Annatto oil

Recipe 1

Recipe 2

(Plus many youtube videos in Spanish to the point where my youtube algorithm now shows me Spanish videos on my homepage.)

Tatale are plantain pancakes and Aboboi are bambara beans which I stewed with added tomato, ginger, chili and seasoning. The tatale had a really delicious sweetness which went very well with the nuttiness of the beans. I used this recipe for most of the ingredients, weights and measures but took my method from these videos [x x x] as I read that the bambara beans would take a lot longer to cook than the 45 mins the recipe stated (they took 3hr in total!) so chose to trust walkthrough videos instead.

The hardest part of this recipe was finding bambara beans! I went to every African food shop in my area and couldn't buy the beans anywhere (except in powdered form called Okpa flour) though I had some really lovely conversations about what I was cooking and why :) I did end up buying them for an extortionate price off amazon (It's one bag of bambara beans, Michael. How much can it cost? £12?) but I think it was worth it for the authenticity. They were much larger than e.g. black eyed beans and had a really delicious nutty flavour. I also added grains of paradise which I similarly struggled to find in person so ordered off amazon as well, for a much more reasonable price!

I fried the tatale in palm oil as although it wasn't listed in the recipe, every video I watched of Ghanaians making these fried them in palm oil. This was, thankfully, easy to find at Sainsburys.

As mentioned in my previous post, I can't eat gluten, so the only swap I made was the flour in the tatale for a gluten free rice and corn flour blend, which I believe is actually perfectly valid as these are often made with rice flour or toasted cornmeal. My partner loved the tatale so much so we will definitely be making them again - plantain is very easy to buy from a local store to us. Will I routinely spend three hours boiling very expensive beans to go with them? Probably not. But I'm glad I did for this!

Next is Panama!

This was a really delicious dish consisting of square homemade pasta mixed with caramelised stewed cabbage and onion and topped with parsley. Really comforting and delicious!

I used this recipe, but substituted salt for vegeta which I read was more authentic to the way Croatians cook this dish at home. I can't eat gluten so this delicious homemade version was for my partner, and I instead broke GF lasagne sheets into small square pieces so I could have somewhat the same thing.

I chose not to make Ćevapčići which was perhaps a more obvious dish, because I had made something very similar when England played Serbia in the Euros.

Next is Ghana, and the plantain are already ripening in my kitchen!