Rice Pudding from the Central African Republic

The dessert I'm sharing with you today is typical in several Central African countries, although it has a different name in each country. It's a rice pudding cooked in peanut milk.

It's called "Bouillie" in The Central African Republic, "Gari" in Cameroon, "Baca" in The Ivory Coast, and "Kapaserie" in Mali.

It's eaten as a dessert or for breakfast.

The dish is made with raw peanuts, which gives the dessert a green flavor. I think it would be better with roasted peanuts, but to stick to the traditional recipe, I used raw peanuts.

Ingredients:

- 100 grams of short grain rice (a cup).

- 150 grams raw peanuts.

- 100 grams of sugar.

Method:

1- First, we prepare the peanut milk. To do this, we'll soak the peanuts for 4 hours. The peanuts are soaked without their shells, and there's no need to remove the inner skin; it's easier to remove it after soaking.

2- We put the peeled peanuts in a blender, for one cup of peanuts we add two cups of water and blend.

3- We strain the milk using a cheesecloth and let the milk that comes out fall into a saucepan. We take the remaining peanut flour from the cheesecloth and put it back in the blender with two cups of water and repeat the process.

4- After straining again, you can keep the peanut flour left in the cloth to make, for example, a cake. It's delicious!

5- Now we cook the rice. For every cup of rice, add two cups of water. Let it cook uncovered, and once all the water has evaporated, add the peanut milk and sugar. Let it cook until it has a slightly thick consistency. Once you add the peanut milk, stir constantly because the rice can easily stick to the pan.

And there you have it, this African dessert.

Receta en Español

Recipe taken from this television channel in the Central African Republic: Vídeo | Facebook

You can also watch the recipe at my Youtube Channel:

Here you have my  favourite cooking tools: https://viaja-en-mi-cocina-english.blogspot.com/2023/05/shop.html

Central African Republic

Tangyuán - glutinous rice balls with black sesame from China

Tangyuan is a typical Chinese dessert. "Tang" means sweet and "Yuan" means circle or reunion.

This is a dessert consumed when families gather for special occasions such as weddings, during the ceremony when the woman arrives at the man's house. During the winter solstice festival (December 21), and the Lantern Festival (the last day of the Chinese New Year celebrations and the first full moon of the year). This year, the Lantern Festival will be celebrated on February 12.

The Chinese people are very superstitious; eating this dessert on these special dates is a sign of happiness and family unity, as well as a good omen for a bountiful harvest.

Tangyuan is always served in even numbers, avoiding the number four, which is associated with death. Usually, six are served, signifying that things will flow smoothly, or eight, which is the number of prosperity.

They are made from glutinous rice flour and traditionally filled with black sesame. They are served in a sweet soup or tea.

If you feel like making this dessert, be careful with the flour. It is not regular rice flour but glutinous rice flour with much more starch. It is the same flour used for Japanese mochi.

Ingredients for the filling:

- 80 g black sesame.

- 30 g peeled roasted peanuts.

- 80 g sugar.

- 60 g Butter.

Ingredients for the dough:

- 250 g glutinous rice flour.

- 140 g boiling water.

- 70 g water ate room temperature.

Ingredients for the broth :

- 800 g boiling water.

- 22 g cornstarch.

- 125 g water + conrstarch.

- Sugar.

Method:

1- Toast the sesame seeds in a pan without oil. To know if the sesame is toasted, add a few white sesame seeds to see when they reach a slight toasted color.

2- Grind the sesame seeds ,peanuts and sugar, put it in a bowl, then add the butter, and mix well.

3- We are going to freeze the filling to make it easier to cut. Take a freezer bag and put the mixture inside, then flatten it so it looks like this:

4- Leave it in the freezer and meanwhile, we will prepare the dough. Put the glutinous rice flour in a bowl and gradually add the hot water, mixing well with a wooden spoon between each pour of water.

When the dough is no longer hot, use your hands to mix and knead it. Add the water gradually in case the amount of water of the ingredients become too much.

Once the dough is well combined and manageable, let it rest for 30 minutes (covered with plastic wrap). This gives the flour time to absorb all the water.

5- After one hour in the freezer , take the filling out of the freezer, divide it into portions, I had 40.We make balls with each of the portions and freeze them again so that the balls harden.

6- Now we weigh the glutinous rice flour dough and divide the total by 40, this will give us the weight for each portion. We make a cylinder with the glutinous rice dough and cut it into 4 parts. We leave the 4 parts covered and we take the amount of dough necessary for one portion, we make a ball with it, we are going to put a ball of sesame dough in it, you can see the way to do it in the photos below and better in the video of the recipe in YouTube, you have a link below.

7- We are going to make starchy water to cook the balls, we pour a little water into a saucepan and dissolve cornstarch in it, we stir it well and we pour it all into the 800 ml of water for the soup, we add sugar and we heat it up.

As soon as it starts to boil, we add the balls to the pot. At first you have to stir so that they don't stick to the bottom, but after a few minutes it will no longer be necessary.

The glutinous rice balls are done when they start to float.

8- The balls are served with a little water.

You can also watch the recipe at my Youtube Channel:

Here you have my  favourite cooking tools: https://viaja-en-mi-cocina-english.blogspot.com/2023/05/shop.html

Receta en Español

China

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Dja Sauce

                                                                    Receta en Español

This is a very popular Sauce in Benin, it is made with tomato's concentrate ,spices and dried prawns that provide the taste from the sea.  Benin is a big exporter of prawns, they even export to Europe.

This sauce can be used to accompany rice, Amiwo, Igname and Atassi. This is a sauce full of taste and very easy to cook.

Ingredients:

• 100 g onions.
• 4 tablespoons Peanut oil.
• 600 g mature tomatos.
• 2 dessert spoon ground dried prawns.
• 1 dessert spoon paprika.
• Salt.
• Pepper.
• 1 dessert spoon ginger.
• 1 dessert spoon ground garlic.

Method:

1-  Pour peanut oil in a pan , sautée onion.

2-  Add diced tomatos. Put on a low heat.

3- Crush tomatos with a wooden spoon, cook until the meat is well separated from the skin. 

4- Use a food mill to obtain the meat of tomatos without the skin and seeds.

5- Grind dried prawns.

6- Put salt, ground dried prawns, pepper, paprika, ginger and garlic together with tomato meat. Cook on a low heat for 30 minutes to have a concentrated sauce.
If you are using pear tomatos you don't need so many time, 10 minutes is ok.

My comments to the recipe

This is a sauce full of taste , it is a great sauce to accompany rice and other food.

Where to buy the ingredients

Dried prawns and peanuts oil can be bought in Madrid at General Margallo street, metro Tetuán.

Benín