Plantain foutou with peanut sauce
Local name: Foutou banane sauce arachide
Plantain and cassava pounded into a smooth elastic dough, served with a peanut sauce simmered with aubergine and chilli.
Photo: Aboukam · CC BY-SA 4.0
- Prep
- 25 min
- Cook
- 50 min
- Total
- 75 min
- Serves
- 4
- Difficulty
- Hard
Method
- Cut the plantain and cassava into large chunks. Boil them in salted water for 25 minutes, until a fork slides in without resistance.
- Meanwhile soften the chopped onion in the oil, add the tomato, garlic and the whole chilli, then let it cook down for 10 minutes.
- Loosen the peanut paste with 500 ml hot water to make a thick milk, then pour it into the pan with the quartered aubergine.
- Simmer uncovered for 25 minutes, stirring often. The sauce is ready when peanut oil rises to the surface.
- Pound the hot cassava in a mortar, then work in the plantain piece by piece. Keep going until the dough leaves the pestle as one smooth mass.
- Wet your hands and shape balls, setting them in bowls before ladling the sauce over.
The pounding happens hot, because gelatinised starch stays pliable while warm and cracks once it cools. Cassava brings the sticky bind, plantain the sweetness and colour. A food processor will not stand in for the mortar, though a stand mixer with the dough hook comes close if you work in small batches.
