Sauce Claire (Sauce claire)
Overview
Sauce claire, clear sauce, is a light Ivorian soup of aubergines and fish, eaten with foutou, placali or rice. Fish is browned briefly with onion and tomato and set aside. Small African aubergines, tomato, onion and a little tomato paste are then simmered in water until soft, lifted out and crushed or blended with a stock cube and dried shrimp. The purée goes back into the pot with the fish, and the soup is seasoned with chilli and salt and simmered gently for another fifteen minutes. It stays thin and pourable, as its name says, and some cooks add okra, smoked fish, chicken or crab.
History
In Côte d'Ivoire the word sauce covers the many soups served with starchy foods such as foutou, pounded plantain or yam, and placali, fermented cassava paste. Sauce claire is the lightest of them and one of the quickest to make, and among the Ebrié people of the lagoons it is also the base of sauce n'tro, a richer Sunday dish.
Main ingredients
African aubergines, fish, tomatoes, onion, chilli, dried shrimp. The soup is built on thin orange-red aubergine broth and is usually served hot. Diet: pescatarian; usually gluten-free.
Explore: Fish and seafood soups · Tomato soups
Recipe
Method
- 15 min
Fry 1 sliced onion in the oil, add the fish and 1 grated tomato and cook for 5 minutes, then lift out the fish.
- 215 min
Add 750 ml water, the aubergines, the other tomato and onion and the tomato paste, and simmer for 15 minutes.
- 3
Lift out the vegetables and blend them with the stock cube and dried shrimp.
- 4
Return the purée to the pot with the fish, adding water if it is too thick.
- 515 min
Season with chilli and salt and simmer gently for 15 minutes.
- ✓
Serve. About 1 h from start to bowl.
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
