Muriwo unedovi

Ingredients

• Collard greens — finely shredded700 g
• Peanut butter — unsweetened150 g
• Onion1
• Tomatoes3
• Garlic3 clove
• 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

   Strip the tough stems from the leaves, roll them up and shred them fine.

   12 min

2. 2

   Fry the onion and garlic in oil until soft, five minutes.

   7 min

3. 3

   Add the chopped tomatoes and cook seven minutes, until they collapse into a paste.

   9 min

4. 4

   Let the peanut butter down with a cup of hot water until smooth and lump-free.

   4 min

5. 5

   Stir in the greens and the slackened peanut butter, season and stew covered for twelve minutes.

   14 min

6. 6

   Uncover and drive off the excess liquid; the sauce should cling to the leaves.

   6 min

About the dish

The peanut butter is let down with hot water to the thickness of pouring cream before it goes in. A lump of paste in the pot never disperses and stays as a knot in the greens.

The sauce should coat the leaves rather than pool around them. Excess liquid is driven off uncovered in the last five minutes.

Dovi — peanut butter — is used in Zimbabwe as widely as tomato paste in Europe: it thickens sauces, stewed meat and vegetables alike.

Worth knowing

• — The peanut butter has to be unsweetened and unadulterated. A sweet one turns the side dish into a dessert, and in Zimbabwe that counts as an error.
• — Do not overcook the greens. Twelve minutes is enough; longer and they turn into a grey, flavourless mush.
• — The same sauce is made with pumpkin leaves, spinach or beet tops. The principle and the proportions stay the same.

Nutrition

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

Calories

320 kcal

Protein

12 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

18 g

More from Zimbabwe

• Sadza ne nyama — Stiff maize porridge with stewed beef and greens. The daily meal of Zimbabwe.