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Sunday, December 4, 2011

Burkinabe Sliders

This post is a while in coming, I took this pictures this summer, but I still wanted to share them with you!

Back in about August, I was sitting with my neighbor, Sita, when a woman passed selling bean leaves. As i've said before, leaves of various plants are often mixed into sauces and provide a good portion of the nutrition value to food here.  Sita bought the leaves and said she was going to make a special dish with them.  She started that afternoon by making corn flour, but a little thicker than the corn flour typically used to make tô.  Then she washed the leaves, and pounded them into a very green mush.  Mix flour with leaf mush and you've got dinner.  She also pounded some fresh peanuts (very different taste than roasted, more of a fresh green bean or pea taste) and added those into the mixture.
The mixture: corn flour, bean leaves, pounded fresh peanuts and water.
At this point, Sita ran off to get something from a village elder.  She came back with a big bundle of a special kind of sticks that she fitted into the pot over the fire.  She poured water over the stick bundle and let it heat up.  As the water was heating, Sita started to form the mixture into oblong balls.  She placed the balls onto the sticks in the pot, then covered it again.

The balls were cooked by the steam, and they hardened and now had a somewhat meatball like consistency.  When done, they are not served on a miniature bun, but instead served covered in oil and salt. (close enough, right?).  I had tried something similar during my training, but that was made from bean flour, not corn.  The corn flour made this a little lighter, and they were pretty good.  They don't have a strong taste at all, meaning that they oil and salt you drizzle on is where most of the flavor is coming from.
Steam cooked to perfection.

I have to admit, any food that is different from the rice, pasta, an that i normally eat is a more than welcome treat.  And when i don't have to cook it myself, even better :)