We spotlight one of the most popular dishes among the Kru and Grebo tribes in Liberia, palm butter soup/stew.
As the name suggests, the main ingredient for this dish is palm nuts. They are boiled, then grounded with a mortar and pestle without cracking the nuts and the juice subsequently extracted. Other ingredients include seafood, chicken/meat/beef, bitter root, bitter ball, spices and other essential vegetables.
The soup/stew is usually eaten with rice.
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Check out the recipe courtesy peacecorpscooking.
Ingredients
- 1 handful hot peppers
- 1 onion
- 1 clove garlic
- 1 cup of rice
- Palm nuts (4 handfuls)
- 1 medium size fish
- Water
Note that you can opt for canned palm nut cream if you don’t want to go through the stress of boiling the natural palm nuts and extracting the juice.
Steps
- Boil palm nuts in pot of water for approx. 15 min until semi-soft.
- Mash hot peppers, garlic, & onions in mortar, or blender. Set aside.
- Parboil chopped fish with pepper/garlic/onion mash in water.
- Mash softened palm nuts with mortar. Place into a bowl.
- Rinse mortar with water and pour the now orange water into a bowl of Palm mash. Press mash into a strainer to squeeze out any juice. Your bowl now has dark orange palm butter. Discard dried mash of fibers.
- Add palm butter to parboiled fish and pepper mash. Boil until soup reduces to desired thickness. Serve over freshly cooked rice.
