The cuisine of Central African Republic is not too different from that of other countries in central Africa. I find that most countries have their version of a peanut stew or shredded greens, along with some kind of version of fufu. For CAR, I made a recipe that may or may not be authentic (I could only find recipes from blogs doing the same thing as me), but it seems to incorporate some of the aforementioned flavors and after searching for unique recipes and coming up empty, sometimes you just have to go with it. I landed on kanda ti nyma, which is basically just meatballs in (you guessed it) peanut sauce.
There is another version of kanda that uses pumpkin seeds mixed with the ground beef. I probably should have used one of those recipes since it adds a more unique twist to it, but alas, I cooked this over a year ago, so no take-back-sies.
The ground meat (I used frozen veggie crumbles) is mixed with sauteed onions, eggs, chili pepper, and garlic. I added a bit of West African curry powder as I often used that as an all-purpose seasoning--it's so good.
Everything is mashed up until you can easily form balls with the mixture.
To prepare the sauce, I used peanut butter powder rather than prepared peanut butter. Either works, but this is slightly healthier and easier to mix with water to form a paste.
I also sauteed up some extra onion and shishito peppers that I had on hand to add to the peanut sauce for some more flavor.
This would normally include sliced okra as well, which I have found hard to find here in Vermont at times. It's rarely available fresh, sometimes frozen, and more often not available at all.
I served it with some rice to soak up the loose peanut stew. I thought the dish was alright, but certainly not the most inspired. Don't get me wrong, I love peanut stews and sauces but most of the time I'm looking for something new and unique for this project and I need to just be okay with things that are just okay! I probably have a little bit of fatigue from the project, but I am so very close to being done; I currently have 14 countries to cook for (but so many more to post about).
Recipes Used: Kanda ti nyma
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