Recipes

Evangelical Lutheran Church in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leone shares the cuisine of much of western Africa, including cassava, yams, plantains, bananas, red palm oil, peanuts and other fruits and vegetables. Fish is an important protein food in coastal areas. One slight difference in cuisine is that the Mende people in southeast Sierra Leone eat rice as the main staple food. Cacao is grown as an export crop to provide the chocolate consumed so eagerly in Europe and North America. One suggestion for sharing the food with young children is to prepare samples of individual ingredients in Sierra Leone cooking. Serve roasted peanuts (being careful with young children because of the choking hazard), sliced bananas, fried plantains and tapioca pudding. Tapioca comes from the processed root of the cassava.

Fried Plantains For this recipe, you need 3-4 plantains. You can usually find plantains in supermarkets in larger cities or in Caribbean or Central American markets. They look like large green bananas. These fried treats are found for sale as snack foods in markets throughout sub-Saharan Africa. Usually they are just sprinkled with salt and hot sauce (Tabasco works!), but sometimes they are coated with powdered ginger and/or cayenne before frying and then salted. If you prefer a sweet taste, you can sprinkle them with sugar and cinnamon. Use either peanut, soybean or safflower oil to deep-fry, as they have a high smoking temperature. If you have a cooking thermometer, keep the oil around 350F. Heat the oil in a heavy saucepan. Slice the peeled plantains into 1/4-inch rounds. Fry the slices a few at a time until they are golden and crisp on the outside but still soft on the inside. If fried too long, the inside will toughen, so try a couple to get the best timing. Remove them from the oil with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towels or newspaper. Recipe from Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant, by the Moosewood Collective, Simon & Schuster, 1990, p.41.