Fonio couscous with vegetables, Senegal

Name: Fonio couscous with vegetables
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 45 min
Total time: 65 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Senegal
Ingredients: 300 g fonio; 3 carrots, cut into lengths; ½ white cabbage, cut into wedges; 1 onion, sliced; 2 garlic cloves, chopped; 80 g green olives, pitted; 4 tbsp groundnut oil; 1 tsp cracked black pepper; 1½ tsp salt; 700 ml water

Method

Rinse the fonio in three changes of water and drain. Wet it with 150 ml salted water and let it swell for 10 minutes.
Tip the fonio into the top of a couscoussier and steam for 10 minutes.
Turn it out into a dish, break the lumps with a fork and pour over 2 tbsp of the oil.
Heat the rest of the oil in the base of the couscoussier. Cook the onion with the garlic for 5 minutes.
Add the carrots, cabbage, pepper, salt and water. Bring to a simmer.
Set the fonio back on top and cook for 20 minutes, with the broth steam rising through the grain.
Drop the olives into the broth 5 minutes before the end.
Mound the fonio on a platter, hollow the middle and pile the vegetables in with two ladles of broth.

Steaming twice is what keeps the grains apart, since the fonio soaks first and then dries again in the steam. It is a West African cereal with no gluten that cooks fast and scorches faster. Fine couscous semolina stands in when you cannot find fonio, though it carries wheat.

The techniques this recipe uses

Drain and rinse
Canning liquid clouds a sauce and salts it blind: rinse until the water runs clear.
Sweat the aromatics
Medium heat, no browning: the onion should turn translucent and sweet, not toasted.

Frequently asked questions

Why rinse the fonio in three changes of water?

The grain is tiny and comes out of milling loaded with dust and fine bran particles. Without a careful rinse the dish keeps a sandy feel in the mouth. Drain it well afterwards, before wetting it with salted water.

My fonio clumps into lumps. How do I avoid that?

That is what the double steaming is for: after the first pass, tip it into a wide dish, break up the clumps with a fork and dress it with oil before returning it over the broth. Worked warm it separates easily; once cold the lumps set hard.

Can fonio just be boiled in water?

It swells very fast and turns to porridge easily, which is why steam is used here: it hydrates the grains gradually and keeps them separate. If you cannot find it, fine couscous is cooked the same way, though it contains wheat.

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Fonio couscous with vegetables

Method

The techniques this recipe uses

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Nutrition per serving

Frequently asked questions

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