A shining face goes with a full belly

Curry rice with beef

Hundreds of years ago the empires of West Africa flourished on the edge of the Sahara, growing rich from trade passing through their lands.  Today, these territories are occupied by modern nations stretching from Senegal to Nigeria and as far south as Cameroon. 

The climates in this area, larger than continental Europe in its entirety, range from wet coastal rainforests to the dry and dusty Sahel at the edge of the terrifyingly vast Sahara.

This diversity is reflected in the unique and exotic foods of the region – from appetisers such as the peppery fried black-eyed pea fritters to the rich, spicy palaver sauce serve with fufu.
  
Rice is grown in abundance in many of the wet coastal and river areas of West Africa.  Among the Hausa - the largest ethnic group in the area - a dish of rice with many different vegetable and meat ingredients is called dafa duku, which broadly translated means cook with everything.  And that phrase captures the essence of peasant cookery in West Africa.  Meals are made with anything that comes to hand, anything in season, with the always available rice as a base, and are usually red with tomato paste.  And always delicious.

Curried Rice with Beef is a good example of the Hausa dafa duku as its ingredients depend largely on what is on hand on the day.  The beauty of West African cooking lies in its flexibility.

When your humble narrator cooked this for supper recently, he followed the recipe below verbatim.  Not only did the resulting repast take him back to childhood days spent in West Africa, but also reminded him of a pan-African Bantu saying: “A shining face goes with a full belly”.  Try it yourself... it’s beyond delicious...

To serve 4, you will need: 

• 3 tablespoons of peanut or palm oil
• 250 grams beef, cut against the grain into chunky strips
• 1 tomato, chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• Half teaspoon curry powder (adjust to taste – mild or hot, up to you)
• Half teaspoon salt
• Half teaspoon smoked paprika
• 1 cup (200ml) long-grain white rice  

Method

• Heat oil in a large, heavy pan and brown the beef over medium heat, stirring for about 10 minutes
• Add tomato, tomato paste, onion, curry powder, salt and red pepper.  Continue to saute untilvegetables soften
• Add rice and 480ml of water.  Stir well, lower heat and simmer, covered for 20-25 minutes, until rice is soft and liquids are absorbed.  Check during cooking and add more water if necessary
• Serve immediately with bread of side of your choice – your hungry narrator’s preference was for an African sambals of cucumber, paw-paw, sweet onion, red pepper, grated carrot salad dressed with a squeeze of lemon juice