Thieboudienne

Ingredients

• Grouper or sea bream — in steaks1.5 kg
• Broken rice700 g
• Parsley60 g
• Garlic8 clove
• Chilli2
• Tomato paste150 g
• Onions3
• Cassava400 g
• Cabbage400 g
• Carrots3
• Aubergines2
• Okra200 g
• Tamarind2 tbsp
• Vegetable oil150 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

   Pound the parsley, garlic, chilli and salt into the rof paste and press it into slashes cut in the fish.

   20 min

2. 2

   Fry the fish three minutes a side and set it aside.

   10 min

3. 3

   In the same oil fry the onion until soft, add the tomato paste and cook five minutes, until it darkens.

   12 min

4. 4

   Add two litres of water, the tamarind and the vegetables and cook twenty-five minutes.

   27 min

5. 5

   Return the fish to the pot for ten minutes, then lift it and the vegetables out and keep them warm.

   14 min

6. 6

   Add the rinsed rice to the remaining broth — twice as much liquid as rice — and cook covered for thirty minutes without stirring.

   32 min

7. 7

   Turn the rice onto a large platter with the fish and vegetables on top. Share out the caught layer from the bottom separately.

   10 min

About the dish

The fish is stuffed with rof — a paste of parsley, garlic and chilli — through slashes in its sides. That is not decoration: the paste flavours the broth the rice will later cook in.

The order is strict: fry the fish, build a tomato broth, lift out the fish and vegetables, and only then cook the rice in that broth. Rice cooked separately makes a different dish.

The caught layer of rice at the bottom, the xoon, is considered the best part and is shared out deliberately. It is not scraped away but served to guests.

Worth knowing

• — Broken rice cannot be swapped for whole grain: it absorbs more broth and gives the right density. With basmati you get a pilaf, not thieboudienne.
• — The tomato paste has to be fried until dark. Underdone, it leaves a sour metallic edge.
• — Take the vegetables out as each is ready rather than all together. Carrot and cassava take longer; okra and cabbage are markedly faster.

Nutrition

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

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

22 g

Carbs

92 g

More from Senegal

• Chicken yassa — Chicken marinated in lemon under a mountain of caramelised onion with mustard.