cook.

Isombe

Name: Isombe
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Rwandan
Ingredients: 500 g cassava leaves (frozen pounded leaves are fine; spinach is not the same dish); 1000 ml water; 4 tbsp red palm oil; 100 g peanut paste or smooth peanut butter; 1 onion, finely chopped; 2 garlic cloves, crushed; 1 aubergine, diced; 1 chilli, whole; salt, to taste

Pounded cassava leaves simmered slowly with palm oil and peanut paste. Rwandan recipe on the hob, with quantities that scale to your servings.

Ingredients

500 g cassava leaves (frozen pounded leaves are fine; spinach is not the same dish)

1000 ml water

4 tbsp red palm oil

100 g peanut paste or smooth peanut butter

1 onion, finely chopped

2 garlic cloves, crushed

1 aubergine, diced

1 chilli, whole

salt, to taste

Method

Pound the leaves in a mortar, or pulse them in a processor, until they are a coarse green paste. If you have bought them frozen and already pounded, you can skip this - that is how most households outside the region get them.

Boil them in the water, uncovered, for 45 minutes. Skim if it foams. This first long boil is the part that matters and it cannot be shortened.

Add the onion, garlic, aubergine and the whole chilli, and carry on at a low simmer for another 30 minutes.

Stir in the palm oil and cook for 15 minutes more, until the oil separates and sits red on the surface.

Loosen the peanut paste with a ladle of the hot cooking liquid first, then stir it back in - added straight from the jar it seizes into lumps.

Simmer for a final 15 minutes, stirring now and then so the peanut does not catch. Salt to taste.

Serve hot with ugali, rice or plantain. Take the chilli out unless somebody wants it.