Ravitoto

Ingredients

• Pounded cassava leaves700 g
• Pork belly — in large pieces700 g
• Coconut milk300 ml
• Onion2
• Garlic6 clove
• Ginger30 g
• Rice — to serve400 g
• Vegetable oil40 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Brown the pork in large pieces on all sides.

   15 min

2. 2

   Add the onion, garlic and ginger and fry until soft.

   8 min

3. 3

   Stir in the cassava leaves, add water to the same level and season.

   6 min

4. 4

   Stew covered for an hour on a low heat, stirring every fifteen minutes.

   62 min

5. 5

   Uncover and drive off the excess liquid; the dish should be thick rather than soupy.

   12 min

6. 6

   Add the coconut milk and warm it five minutes without boiling. Serve with rice.

   8 min

About the dish

The name means "pounded leaves": cassava greens are worked in a mortar to a paste. It is long work, and in Madagascar it is usually bought ready-pounded at the market.

Use fatty pork. Cassava leaves are dry and fibrous on their own, and the fat is the only thing that makes the dish palatable.

It cooks at least an hour: as in Mozambican matapa, undercooked cassava leaves are dangerous. That is a rule here, not a suggestion.

Worth knowing

• — Pounded leaves are sold frozen in African shops — that is the standard route in Madagascar itself as well.
• — Not everyone adds coconut milk: the version without it, plain ravitoto sy henakisoa, is equally classic and drier on the palate.
• — Rice comes alongside, and often a small bowl of the hot sakay sauce. The ravitoto itself has no heat at all.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

700 kcal

Protein

32 g

Fat

48 g

Carbs

38 g

More from Madagascar

• Romazava — Meat in broth with brèdes mafana, a bitter green that makes the mouth tingle.