Domoda (Domodah)
Overview
Domoda is a thick groundnut soup-stew from the Gambia. Beef, lamb or chicken is browned with onion and garlic, then tomato paste is fried in the pot until it darkens. Water or stock goes in with plenty of smooth groundnut paste, which slowly cooks into a rich orange-brown sauce. Chunks of pumpkin, sweet potato or cassava are added and soften in the sauce, and a whole scotch bonnet is often dropped in for heat and lifted out before serving. A squeeze of lime finishes it. Domoda is ladled over plain white rice and eaten for lunch, the main meal of the day.
History
Groundnuts have been the Gambia's most important cash crop since the nineteenth century, and domoda is often called the country's national dish. It is cooked in homes and roadside canteens from Banjul to the villages along the Gambia River, and similar groundnut stews are made across Senegal, Mali and Guinea. Families stretch it with more vegetables when meat is scarce, and every cook adjusts the thickness and heat to taste.
Main ingredients
Groundnut paste, beef or chicken, tomato paste, pumpkin, sweet potato, scotch bonnet. The soup is built on meat stock and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; usually gluten-free.
Explore: Chicken soups · Beef soups · Tomato soups · Pumpkin and squash soups
Recipe
Method
- 1
Brown the meat in the oil with the onion and garlic.
- 25 min
Stir in the tomato paste and fry for 5 minutes until it darkens.
- 330 min
Add 1.2 l water, the stock cube and the scotch bonnet and simmer for 30 minutes.
- 430 min
Whisk in the groundnut paste, add the pumpkin and sweet potato and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring often.
- 5
Remove the chilli, add the lime juice and serve over rice.
- ✓
Serve. About 1h 30m from start to bowl.
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
