The World Cup Food Challenge - Day 12, Cameroon (Cameroonian Ndole with Fried Plantains)

High with anticipation of great things to come in my World Cup Food Challenge, I set off on Day 2 of the challenge in search of an African store. I say, "in search"; I mean, I went to the African store which is between the bus stop and the apartment where I used to live until a few months ago. I walked and cycled past the store a thousand times, but never went in. I knew neither what they sold, nor enough about African cuisine to be able to fathom what I could possible have use for in there. It was also slightly off-putting that they tended to have multi-coloured wigs in the shop window. But now, I was on a quest. I had been randomly researching foods of the World Cup countries, and had come across mention of bitter leaf several times. Ignoramus that I was, I paused to wonder whether they meant just any bitter tasting leaf. How will I know if bitter is bitter enough? After noticing "bitter leaf" on several more recipes, I cottoned on to the fact that they were referring to a specific plant.

The trip to the African store was quite an eye-opener, I have to say. They had things in there that I never knew existed. At least not in that form: yam powder, melon powder, and most surprising to me of all, mango seed powder! I never knew that you could do anything with a mango seed other than plant it, or throw it away. I thought that by gnawing at the seed and sucking on it until every last hint of mango flavour was extracted from the seed before throwing it away, I was getting the most use possible from a mango seed. But no, you can make it into a powder and sell it! What one does after having bought such powder still eludes me, but I am sure my old friend Google would be able to enlighten me. Come to think of it, I cannot remember now if it was melon powder, or melon seed powder. Melon seed powder would be quite impressive, because really, how many melons would you need to collect enough seeds to make 100g of powder?

I digress. The point is, I found bitter leaf. It was not to be seen in the store, but it was produced upon request after a short rummage in the box freezer behind the counter; in the form of a small cube wrapped in what was obviously multiple layers of plastic bags and tied together with string. On that same trip, I also bought two green plantains, one of which I used on Day 4 (Ecuador). The other way had been sitting around since then on the kitchen counter, confusingly (and possibly confusedly) next to some bananas. It had, since then, ripened, and also seemed to have shrunk slightly. So, put that together with the bitter leaf, and I have the main ingredients for Day 12, which was to be Cameroonian Ndolé with fried plantains.

Cameroonian Ndolé with Fried Plantains

Ndolé  is seems to be both the name of the plant and the dish. I based my dish mainly and the two following recipes, but I did also looked at many others so that what I actually made in the end was rather different from either of them.
http://www.learnafricancuisine.com/authentic-cameroonian-ndole-recipe/
http://www.recettesafricaine.com/ndole-camerounais.html

Ingredients
1 onion
1 chili
1 cup beef stock
1 tsp shrimp chili flakes (the original recipe suggested dried shrimp as an option. I also came across another recipe which used dried chili. I did not have any dried shrimp, but I did have some shrimp chili flakes in a bottle, so I decided to use that instead.)
2 garlic cloves
1 1/2 inch ginger
1/2 cup peanut butter (all right, so I cheated. Most recipes use peanuts, boiled and crushed and whatever-else-ed to be made into a paste. But I came across one or two recipes which said that peanut butter is an acceptable option for those who do not want to go through the whole drama of making peanut paste, especially if creamy unsweetened peanut butter can be found. I went ahead with my regular sweetened crunchy peanut butter!)
about 25g crayfish tails (only because I happened to have some at home.)
ndolé (bitter leaf) (the original recipe stated one and a half pounds. I do not know how much I used, having randomly reduced the portion as usual. I was also a bit wary of using too much because of the promised bitterness. In all I think it might have been about half a cup of frozen ndolé.)
spinach (this, I also came across in another recipe as an alternative or to compliment the ndolé. I used a little bit more spinach than bitter leaf, but only very little more.)
salt, black pepper & white pepper

Method
1. Prepare the ndolé by repeatedly boiling and pouring away the water. This is suppose to reduce the bitter taste. If using fresh ndolé, apparently it should be boiled for 15 minutes.
2. Boil the beef, with 1/2 of the chopped onion and beef stock.
3. In the meantime, grind 1/2 onion, fresh ginger and garlic into a paste.
4. Remove the stock from the beef. Add onion paste to beef and fry for a few minutes.
5. Add peanut paste (or peanut butter) and mix well.
6. Add ndolé and spinach, and shrimp chili flakes. Stir continuously to prevent sticking.
7. Increase mix to a wet thick consistency with previously removed beef stock.

One recipe suggested serving with fried plantains. As I still had the one plantain from my Ecuadorian meal, I went with that.

 Fried Plantains - dead easy!
1. Peel plantains. (use very ripe plantains)
2. Slice plantains into desired size / shape.
3. Fry plantains.
4. Enjoy!

Verdict - hmm... dubious. It worked, don't get me wrong. There was nothing wrong with the dish, except for the bitterness of the bitter leaf - what a surprise. It was really more of a bitter aftertaste really that was the issue. After a few mouthfuls, I think I got used to it a bit and quite enjoyed it. But towards the end, I started noticing the bitterness a lot more again. So, while I finished my bowl of ndolé that day, I very much doubt that I will be making it again. Not with ndolé anyway. I came across some suggestions to use kale or savoy cabbage as alternatives. That is something I will consider; I do like kale and savoy cabbage. The fried plantains, of course, I loved! So much so that I went back to the African store and bought more.