Gardeners are thinking about planting again. That got me thinking about a harvest season family dinner inspired by the publication in my local paper of a recipe for maafe by Yewande Komolafe. Komolafe is a New York Times food editor who has been informing Westerners about the cuisine of her native Nigeria. Maafe is the Nigerian contribution to the peanut stews found all over West Africa. I've had the pleasure of eating versions with chicken in Senegal and fish in Cote d'Ivoire. The Komolafe recipe, as she writes "goes all in on produce." I decided it'd be dinner when I realized we could use vegetables fresh from my husband’s garden: tomatoes, pumpkin, eggplant, garlic, peppers, collard greens and carrots.
As I glanced over Komolafe’s recipe, I thought back to food’s prominence in a passel of contemporary Nigerian novels I had read:
--Chris Abani's "Becoming Abigail"
--Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's “Purple Hibiscus” and “Half of a Yellow Sun”
-- Segun Afolabi's “A Life Elsewhere”
-- Sefi Atta's “Everything Good Will Come"
-- Helon Habila's “Waiting for an Angel”
--Uzodinma Iweala's "Beasts of No Nation"
--Helen Oyeyemi's "The Icarus Girl".
I’d read the novels back-to-back in preparation to write an article about new voices in Nigeria’s rich literary tradition. The authors’ themes and approaches varied, but all the books had many, many scenes about preparing and consuming meals. Later, Atta, one of the Nigerian novelists on whose work I’d binged, told me jokingly in an interview: “It’s just the time we spend making our food that makes it so significant in our literature.”
Komolafe’s maafe recipe is as labor intensive as anything I found in my reading. Some of the vegetables had already been harvested, but others had to be gathered and all scrubbed, peeled and chopped. I got through the tomatoes and half a pumpkin – I’ve never skinned and butchered a rabbit, but I imagine that would be similar to wrestling with pumpkin’s tough shell, dense flesh and guts-like seeds. My daughter saw I was flagging and stepped in to complete dinner, from the rest of the picking, cleaning and chopping through the seasoning, sauteeing and simmering.
As we at last sat down to eat, my husband, who usually cooks for us, had lots of questions and suggestions. I teased him: "This is why no one wants to cook for you!" To which my daughter said, "No, I like it, I learn from it."
I took away two lessons. First, that I should take my husband’s cooking advice in the spirit in which it is given, which is out of love of food, cooking and his family, and out of genuine curiosity about others' approaches. Second, that we get to keep learning from our kids.
Following is Komolafe's recipe, with notes in italics about how we made the meal. It serves a lot, but keeps well and the flavors get better every day. All that chopping pays off.
INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 small red onion, chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
1 (1-inch) piece fresh ginger, scrubbed and grated We saved some work here by using ginger paste we buy in tubes at the grocery store and always have in the fridge. Grocers often stock ginger and garlic paste in the produce section.
1 tablespoon tomato paste This is really just to boost the flavor of canned tomatoes. Our garden tomatoes needed no boost, so we skipped the paste.
1 (14.5-ounce) can whole peeled tomatoes As I said, we used fresh that I painstakingly peeled and chopped
1 red Scotch bonnet pepper
Salt
2 medium green plantains, peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces We used eggplant because that's what we had.
½ medium butternut squash (about 1 pound), peeled and cut into 1-inch pieces Again, pumpkin was what my husband had grown. This is a good recipe for cleaning out the larder.
2 medium carrots, scrubbed and cut into 1-inch pieces
4 cups vegetable stock or water
½ cup creamy, unsalted peanut butter
2 tablespoon tamarind purée We keep a jar of this in the fridge next to the ginger paste. It adds a nice tang to Asian dishes as well
2 teaspoons ground dawadawa, a fermented locust bean product from West Africa that comes powdered or as whole beans. Komolafe suggested fish sauce or fermented black beans, more commonly found in Asian cooking, as substitutes. We had fish sauce but no fermented black beans. We used soy sauce because my daughter is vegetarian – not only do kids keep teaching you, they keep you on your toes in so many ways. Dawadawa would be a good vegetarian condiment to have on hand. We'll have to search it out at our favorite international market.
4 cups hearty greens My daughter kept forgetting to pick some, so she ended up out in the garden with a flashlight. That meant the greens didn't cook in the stew as long as Komolafe recommended, but it also meant they kept a lovely green color that brightened the dish visually.
Steamed rice, fonio or millet, for serving. We did not pound millet grains into flour, a rhythmic ritual that women do together in West Africa and to which novelists have turned for scenes of bonding. We ate our maafe with rice the first night. The next evening the flavors had mellowed even more and we had leftovers on grits for an equally delicious and subtly different dish.
PREPARATION
Step 1
In a large saucepan, heat the oil over medium, and add the onion and garlic. Sauté until soft and just beginning to brown at the edges, about 6 minutes. Add in the grated ginger and sauté until fragrant, 1 minute.
Step 2
Add the tomatoes and their liquid, breaking up the tomatoes in the pot. Stir and scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any bits that have stuck. Using a sharp knife, poke slits in the Scotch bonnet and drop it into the pot. Season the sauce with salt, and bring the sauce to a simmer.
Step 3
Add the eggplant and cook until they just begin to soften, 10 minutes. Add the pumpkin, carrots and vegetable stock. Increase the heat to high and bring the stew to a boil. Once the liquid is bubbling, reduce heat to medium. Cook until the vegetables are just fork tender, about 15 minutes. In a small bowl, combine the peanut butter with ¼ cup hot liquid from the pot. Stir into a loose sauce.
Step 4
Stir the peanut butter mixture into the pot. Add the tamarind purée, dawadawa or its substitute. Stir in the greens. Drop the heat to low and let the sauce simmer, stirring frequently, for another 10 minutes or until the sauce is thickened to a creamy but loose consistency. Remove from heat, taste and season with more salt if necessary. Remove the pepper and discard. My daughter used a handful of my husband's jalapenos. Scotch bonnets are pretty hot. West Africans, who I have found like their food spicy, might have thought our maafe too mild. Komolafe advises keeping the Scotch bonnet whole while cooking, and when finished either removing it to control the heat, or breaking it open to dissolve the seeds into the sauce to give the stew a kick. My daughter kept the jalapenos whole. My husband dashed Tabasco over his plate of stew, which I tried not to take as a criticism.
Perhaps I’ve planted a seed and now others will be inspired to prepare maafe. No need to wait until harvest time. All the ingredients or good substitutes are easy to gather at most grocery stores, or this could be an opportunity for a family field trip to an international market. Maafe is like a good book; it’s a meal that can evoke memories and imaginings close to home and further afield. Bon appétit, and bon voyage.