Burundian Beans, Polenta, Greens, and Goat
As Alain Bitariho and Mia Ntahobari from Bujumbura,
Burundi, taught Lindsay Sterling in Gorham, ME.
Serves 12-16
Cooking Time: 3 hours
1 lb. canary beans*
1 lb. minced cassava leaves*
2 lb. bone-in goat meat, cut into 2” chunks*
1 green pepper, large dice
1 eggplant, cubed
1 + 1/4 onion, large dice
2 leeks, quartered lengthwise and sliced across
2 + 2 bouillon cubes
1/2 cup + 1/3 cup vegetable oil
4-5 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 tsp dried basil
1/2 + 1 tsp black pepper
1/4 tsp curry powder
2 bay leaves
1/2 tsp Goya Sazonador Total (optional)*
16 oz. tomato paste
3 cups white pre-cooked cornmeal (Masarepa brand)* or 3
cups white rice
1/4 cup peanut butter
Akabanga oil*
The night before, cover beans with water by 2 inches and
soak over night. Drain and cover again with fresh water by 1 inch. Bring to a
boil and then simmer for about an hour or as long as it takes for the beans to
become tender.
Put cassava leaves in large pot on high with 4 cups of
water, two chunks of goat meat, and two bouillon cubes. Simmer covered for 3
hours.
Put the rest of the goat meat in a medium pot (with lid).
Add enough water to not quite cover the meat all the way and 2 bouillon cubes,
and cook on high with the lid on. Cook until the meat is brown.
When cassava leaves become fragrant, add cubed eggplant,
green pepper, onion and leeks, and enough hot water so that it comes just under
the vegetable tops. Add bay leaves, Sazonador Total, black pepper, garlic, and
cook covered on medium high heat.
When goat meat is brown, strain the broth into a
container for later use, and add 1/3 cup oil so that the oil is half way up the
meat pieces. Add 1/4 onion, minced, black pepper, 1/2 tsp basil, bay leaf and
curry powder.
After cassava cooks for fifteen minutes, add 1/2 cup
vegetable oil. Continue cooking covered on medium high for another 2 1/2 hours,
adding cups of water periodically to keep it somewhere between a soup and a
solid. In the end, you don’t want it watery, but very moist.
When goat is getting darker brown and fried and 16 oz.
tomato paste to goat and let cook for ten minutes, stirring to create a thick,
red, pasty sauce. Stir in 1-2 cups of the reserved goat broth to loosen the
paste into a bright red sauce. Turn off heat.
When the cassava has cooked for 2:45, then reheat the
goat and pour most of the sauce into the cassava, keeping the goat pieces from
falling into the cassava pot. Stir peanut butter to the cassava leaves. Cook
for fifteen minutes more. Add more broth if you have it to extend the sauce in
the goat pot.
You can make white rice or a thick style polenta called
bugali to go with this dish (also called foufou in other African languages.) To
make the bugali, bring water in a medium nonstick pot to a boil. Split water into
two pots. Pour enough corn flour into the 1st pot (still on the heat) to reach
the surface of the water. Stir with a wooden spoon, mashing the corn flour
against the sides of the pot continuously.
Add water from the 2nd pot only if the corn flour remains dry and
uncooked. When the corn mixture becomes bouncy and pulls away from the pot in a
single mass, it’s ready. Press the bugali evenly into the bottom of the pot,
then overturn the pot so the bugali falls onto a plate. Sprinkle water on
another dinner plate and use the wet plate to press the sides of the polenta
into a smooth mound.
Serve a 1-inch thick slice of bugali on each plate (or a
serving spoon of white rice) with along with piles of cassava leaves (called
sombe), goat meat with sauce, and boiled beans. Top with 2-3 drops of super
spicy Akabanga oil.
*Where to get ingredients.
Here is your grocery list for Ebenezer, 654 Congress
Street, Portland, ME:
1 lb. cassava leaves
2 lb. goat
1 bag pre-cooked corn flour (or 3 cups white rice)
1 pound canary beans
1 jar Sazonador Total
1 bottle Akabanka oil
The rest of the ingredients you can get at your regular
grocery store.
