Immigrant Kitchens: Congolese Red Sauce

The Recipe - Congolese yellow rice, fish, and red sauce

Congolese Yellow Rice, Fish, and Red Sauce

As Ariane Kambu Mbenza from Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, taught Lindsay Sterling in Yarmouth, ME, in May 2013.

Active Time: 1 hr 15 min
Serves 8

2.5 pounds whole Tilapia
1 Tbsp + 2 tsp + 1 Tbsp dried parsley
2 + 2 + 2 Maggi cubes (for no msg, use 1 tsp Better than Bouillon per Maggi cube)
2 Tbsp + 1/2 cup + 2 cups vegetable oil or red African palm oil
2 pounds carrots, peas, and green beans cut into bite size pieces (she used a frozen medley)
4 cups basmati rice
3 Tbsp butter
1 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp super hot dried chili powder (optional)
2 tsp turmeric
1 onion
10 cloves chopped garlic (2 Tbsp)
16 oz. tomato puree

Congolese Shallow-Fried Tilapia

Cut heads off 2.5 pounds tilapia. Rub bodies with oil, 1 Tbsp parsley, and 2 crumbled Maggi cubes. Let marinate for 6 hours or over night. Fill a fry pan 1/4 inch deep with oil. Bring oil up to medium-low heat. Gently place fish pieces in oil with plenty of space around each (if the pan is crowded, the skins won't get crispy). Let fish cook slowly (about 20 minutes) so you don't burn the outside while the inside is still raw. I would say she had her heat on medium low and her fish cooked for 10 minutes a side. The skins were golden all around and crispy. Delicious!

Congolese Yellow Rice With Vegetables

Cover the bottom of a deep large saute pan (with lid) or rice cooker with oil. Add 2 pounds frozen vegetables (peas, carrots, green beans) and saute until thawed, or add fresh vegetables and cook for 2-3 minutes. Put 4 cups basmati rice in a bowl, cover with water, and drain. Cover with water again and drain. Add rice to the vegetables and stir in 2 tsp parsley, 2 crumbled Maggi cubes or 2 tsp Better than Bouillon, 1 tsp black pepper, 2 tsp turmeric, and 3 Tbsp butter. Stir and let cook on medium-low for 30 minutes, stirring every so often. Separately heat up about 7 cups of water water (for adding to the rice later). I think cooking the rice without the water allows the grains to soak up the oil, flavored with all the things you put in it. I also suspect that it helps the grains stay separate, and not get all mushed together. After 30 minutes, add enough hot water to cover the rice by 1/4 inch (this is less than you would for plain rice because those veggies don't suck up water, quite the opposite - they provide moisture!) Cover and let cook on low for 15 minutes.

Congolese Red Sauce That's Good with Everything

Pour enough oil in a small saute pan to be about 1/4 inch deep, add thin slices from 1 onion. Saute on medium-low for 20-30 minutes. Add 2 Tbsp chopped garlic. Continue cooking. You don't want to brown the onions, just get them softer and softer, so adjust your heat accordingly. Add 16 oz. tomato puree, 1 Tbsp parsley flakes, 1/2 tsp dried piri piri or birds-eye chili powder (lighter in color and much hotter than the chili powder at your American supermarket). As the onions continue to cook they will disintegrate into the tomato puree. Disappearing onions is the secret to the sauce! Add 2 crumbled Maggi cubes or 2 tsp Better than Bouillon. Sauce is done when onions have disappeared and the sauce is smooth. (FYI, this sauce is great with rice, fried, chicken, potato, seafood, anything!)

Serve a big pile of rice on half the plate. Next to that, a nice piece of fish, and a pile of the red sauce on the last third of the plate.

Copyright Lindsay Sterling 2013

The Story

Sporadic Waffle Iron Use in Congo

By Lindsay Sterling

Maine resident, Ariane Kambu Mbenza, grew up with her uncle in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When she was seven years old, he asked her to be in charge of preparing food. Sure, Uncle. No problem. She had grown up watching her mother cook and played kitchen plenty of times. “In Africa, you know how to cook automatically.” Now a mother herself, Ariane showed me how to make what in Congo would be called, “Riz aux legumes avec poisson grillè avec la sauce tomate à l’ail.”

For much of the twentieth century the Democratic Republic of the Congo was a Belgian colony. The Belgian colonists spoke French, not Beljish. (No one really speaks Beljish in Belgium, but I think they should.) In her adult life, she became a teacher’s assistant in London before moving to the U.S. to be with her husband. In English, she describes the dish this way: fried tilapia, yellow rice with vegetables and red sauce. For dessert (truthfully, an appetizer as we had them) were little bite-sized waffle-cookies called gaufres [pronounced Goaf].

“Some people live by selling these,” she said as she put a tablespoon of batter in each quadrant of the waffle iron. “Like on the street in front of their door. You make your family survive, give you some extra money.” I would buy these gaufres on the street in front of someone’s door. They were dense, hot, pop-in-your mouth cookies with a built-in tic-tac-toe board. As if they weren’t perfect as they were, she said you could serve four of them with a scoop of ice cream in the middle, or top each one with whipped cream.

Frankly, I didn’t expect a Congolese cook to whip out a waffle iron. “Did you use that in the Congo?” I asked, “And did you have a stove?” She said, “Yes, but the electricity would cut for 3-4 days. It’s not like it is here. So then I would cook with coals in a large can. I would mix wood and coals to make the fire last longer.”

Then she opened a can of tomato sauce with a chef knife. It was amazing. She held the knife vertically over the can and then, with a pop of her hand on the handle, the knife entered the can. Then she cranked the back of the knife against the rim of the can with the knife blade pointing up. That is how you open a can in the DRC. Who needs can openers? I have been actually stuck with a can and no can opener before, and it seemed like such a pickle. No more!

She had de-headed the whole tilapia before I got there, and sliced it into portions. I thought it looked like great fish. She said she got it at Sam’s club. She’d marinated it in oil, dried parsley and a crushed Maggi cube (African bouillon of choice). And now she was frying the pieces in a shallow layer of oil in a large sauté pan. The fish turned out awesome: golden, crispy skin all the way around each piece and great flavor inside.

Ariane spent the rest of her youth in the South of France where her dad worked for an automobile company. Assuming nowhere on earth could ever compare to the South of France, I asked why she ever left. She said, “When you grow up somewhere, you need some change. I love discovering new things.” A woman after my own heart.