Mafé is Senegal's great Sunday stew, and probably the dish our customers cook most often. Its sauce is peanuts, tomato and slow time. Most recipes reach for a jar of peanut butter; grinding roasted peanuts yourself gives a deeper, more toasted flavour and lets you control the salt and sugar.
Serves: 6 · Time: 2 hours
Ingredients
- 1½ cups Tonton Jeb Roasted Peanuts
- 1 kg beef shoulder or shin, cut into large cubes (or chicken thighs)
- 3 tablespoons oil
- 2 onions, chopped
- 4 garlic cloves, crushed
- 3 tablespoons tomato paste
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- 6 cups water or stock
- 2 carrots, 1 sweet potato and ¼ cabbage, in large chunks
- 1 Scotch bonnet chilli, whole
- Salt, black pepper, 1 bay leaf
- Senegalese Local Rice to serve
Method
- Blend the roasted peanuts in a food processor until they turn into a thick paste, 3 to 4 minutes, scraping down the sides. Set aside.
- Season the meat with salt and pepper. Brown it in the oil in a heavy pot, in batches, then set aside.
- Cook the onions in the same pot until golden, add the garlic and tomato paste, and fry for 2 minutes.
- Add the chopped tomatoes, bay leaf and 1 cup of the water. Return the meat, cover and simmer for 45 minutes.
- Loosen the peanut paste with a cup of hot liquid from the pot, then stir it in along with the rest of the water. Simmer uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring so it does not catch.
- Add the carrots, sweet potato, cabbage and whole chilli. Cook for 25 to 30 minutes more until the vegetables are tender and the oil has risen to the surface in a red-orange layer.
- Remove the chilli and bay leaf, adjust salt, and serve over hot rice.
Tips from the pantry
- The sauce should coat a spoon. Too thick, add water; too thin, simmer a little longer.
- Mafé freezes well. Make a double batch of sauce and freeze half without the vegetables.
- Vegetarian version: skip the meat, use vegetable stock, and add pumpkin and okra with the other vegetables.
