- Hi, I'm Nathan Josias.
If you don't know me yet,
I'm a French plant-based chef based in London.
Today, I'm going to connect to my roots,
and veganize a traditional Cameroonian dish, ndolé.
I'm going to serve the ndolé with miondo.
Miondo is made of fermented paste of manioc.
So in Africa it's called manioc,
but you can also find it under the name of yucca or cassava.
The skin of the manioc is really thick,
so make sure that when you peel it, you do it with a knife
and not with a peeler.
Many Cameroonian recipes or even African,
contain a lot of preparation steps,
so just be patient and enjoy the moment.
Right now, I'm going to cut the manioc in half,
and take out the center
because it's not really easy to digest
even when it's cooked.
So, I'm a trained chef,
and I'm really confident with a knife.
If you're not comfortable with a knife,
just use a small knife
or directly in the plank,
and don't hold it in your hand like I do.
Let's jump into the next step.
Usually would be to fermented the manioc for three days,
but we don't have three days in front of us.
So I'm just going to go and grate it
until I can have a paste out of it.
A lot of African dish actually are vegan.
The past 50 years, 60 years, meat and animal products,
have been brought more to, more to Africa,
so for this one, no need to veganize it.
Remember that cooking is all about confidence,
so if you don't feel comfortable going that close,
just stop grating and you can put it in water.
Actually, one way to eat manioc is
just slice big chunks of it and boil it.
And it's just delicious.
This is how I used to eat it most of the time in Cameroon.
So if you use a machine,
you don't have to make this step.
As I grated by hand,
I'm just going to go with the knife and chop it more finely.
Don't be afraid to press it,
we're gonna make a paste out of it,
so you can be heavy on the knife.
I'm going to grind the manioc in my small mortar.
Look at this cute and small mortar.
So just put a handful at the time.
And this is the moment
we're going to create a paste out of it.
When the manioc is fermented for three days,
it's gonna be easier to make a paste out of it.
Didn't want to,
ferment it.
So, now we have to pay the price,
and the price is hustle.
Now that we made a paste out of the manioc,
the last step is gonna be to roll it
in really tight sausage shape.
Traditionally, we would use banana leaves,
but here baking paper will work perfectly.
So right here, I just press
and you can see the starch running out of my hand.
Just press it, no need to drain it.
Just press it a bit,
and start to make this sausage shape with my hands.
I'm gonna roll the paper around the miondo,
and make it really, really, really tight.
Give it a twist at the end, each end.
I'm going to knot the two ends of my manioc sausage,
my miondo in the making.
Now that we have our miondo all tied up in the baking paper,
we gonna to put it in boiling water for 30 minutes.
You don't want to cover them with water.
Just add water, time to time into the pot.
Let's make another side dish to go with the ndolé.
And usually it's served with plantains, miondo, rice,
lot of different dishes that we could have at the same time.
So I'm just going to prepare some plantain,
just boil it in water for 30 minutes.
Let's dive into the actual ndolé recipe.
Here, I'm gonna use spinach.
So why it's called ndolé?
Just because the green that we use in Cameroon
is called ndolé.
And here we're gonna use spinach
because ndolé is barely impossible to find
but ndolé is just spinach that is a lot bitter.
Traditionally, they gonna wash it more than 15 times,
and I want to save myself from this task.
So I'm just gonna wash it in the sink,
cause it's still a bit dirty.
Now that my spinach is clean,
I'm going to roughly chop it.
I'm going to keep the water
because it's gonna add the water in the sauce
as I'm not gonna add any more after.
I'm going to set my spinach aside,
and I'm going to add in a blender, onion, garlic,
and a splash of oil.
I just weighed a 100 gram of peanut flour,
and a 100 gram of peanut butter.
That's gonna be the base of my paste for the ndolé.
In a pot, I'm going to fry my onion and garlic mix.
And I'm going to add the ground peanuts
and peanut butter to it.
Last but not least,
I'm going to add the spinach to the pot.
The only two spices I'm going to add to my ndolé,
it's salt and white pepper.
White pepper is really used in Cameroonian cuisine.
And this is the pepper I'm going to use here.
No black pepper today.
The miondo is finally cooked.
I'm just going to drain the extra water right here
and let them cool.
Even when you wrap the miondo really tight,
when they're gonna cook, they're gonna expand.
And you can see
that they were really tight in the baking paper.
I'm going to unwrap the miondo.
Just cut the ends out of the rope,
and there you go.
This gooey texture really remind me of miondo.
This is exactly the miondo I used to steal
in the kitchen when I was younger.
So delicious.
Final step of this Cameroonian plate.
I'm going to add the ndolé
and the plantains.
This plate right here,
I'm bringing a lot of childhood memories.
Especially that ndolé is made with meat
and shrimps usually,
so right here, a vegan version of it,
I couldn't be happier.
The smell is accurate.
Hmm!
That tastes delicious.
Not too much bitterness.
Exactly how I want them.
What about the miondo?
Hmm!
Even though my ndolé is not made with ndolé leaves,
and spinach.
I still have a bit of bitterness,
and that's add by the peanut,
and that's absolutely what I want.
This recipe is an actual success.
It's Nathan Josias of LIVEKINDLY.
Do you have a favorite African dish?
Let us know in the comment.
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Au revoir!