Virtual African Loop: Kansiyé

I have to admit, although Poulet Yassa is a traditional Guinean dish, I love the Senegalese version from Panning The Globe so much that I can’t bring myself to try a different one.

In fact, (1) I’ve already made that version again YUM! and (2) I’ll be trying other recipes from their site as I continue my trek, as well as leveraging a selection of cookbooks and other sites along the way.

But I do need to make something to mark the Guinea portion of this trek, so I’m trying this recipe for a different traditional dish from the region.

And of course, I also went looking for some music from Guinea. This time I picked a more up-to-date mix of sounds versus leaning toward traditional and folk music.

Observation: peanut butter is often an ingredient in recipes from the region. I tend to think of PB as so very American, which I must admit is kinda dumb of me because it seems likely that people have been eating and grinding nuts – in some form – since basically forever.

So there you go. Cultural blinders off in one small way.

This recipe made me nervous though. I mean: tomato sauce and peanut butter and ground cloves? Oh my!

It’s the cloves that drive a lot of the scent as it first cooks. There isn’t a lot of it in the dish, but a little goes a long way. Still, over the hour of simmering, that started to mellow as it mixed with the other flavors.

And the net result was actually very good. I’ll be eating it over rice for the next few days and I anticipate that like all stews, it will get even better as all the diverse flavors get to know each other.

And isn’t that an excellent lesson for life right there?