Thieboudienne, a one-pot rice and seafood dish, is considered the national dish of Senegal. It can be made with a variety of ingredients and is served from a shared bowl. The dish has roots in Spanish paella and is traditionally made with dried fish, but can also be made with whole fish or fillets. Timing is important when cooking the rice to avoid burning it.
Nothing says home to a Senegalese like the thief. This one-pot rice and seafood dinner sure knows how to bring a family together. The meal is served from a huge shared bowl around which diners sit or squat, scooping webbeds that are quickly poked and prodded and rolled into bite-sized morsels. The only thing thieboudienne doesn’t know how to do is spell her own name while she willingly goes by thiep bu dinenne, ceebu djen and a host of other phonetic spellings.
Regardless of how it is spelled, this aromatic family meal, which originated with the Woolof people, has become so ubiquitous that many Senegalese consider it the national dish. With a dozen spellings and a dozen square variations, there’s no wrong way to prepare ladroudienne. The ground floor always contains rice, preferably short grain or sticky rice, as well as steamed, fried or dried fish. Tomatoes or tomato sauce, fried onions and garlic, and palm or peanut oil put the finishing touches to an everyday home-cooked meal.
Some cooks use the opportunity to include whatever vegetables are available. Especially popular are cabbage, potatoes and potatoes. When in season, eggplants can saute and play and chopped greens like parsley. A good splash of Scotch Bonnet Hot Sauce is de rigueur in many households.
Thieboudienne is as relaxed by the way the fish is prepared as he is by the spelling of his name. Traditionally, enough dried fish was used to infuse flavor into the dish. Today, cooks who live near the ocean have more opportunities to prepare whole fish or fillets by either frying them on an aromatic wood-fired grill or steaming them.
This rice and fish dish has roots in Spanish paella. Like that older cousin, thieboudienne can be made with the addition of other meats and seafood. A version where the protein is limited to beef is called ceebu yapp and is just as popular.
Regardless of the ingredients that ultimately make it to the pot, the cooking method is the same. Onions and garlic are sauteed and combined in a pot along with the fish. The diluted tomato puree or salsa sautees together with several cups of water and the greens. Once everything is cooked, it is removed so that the remaining liquid can welcome the rice with open arms.
The next part isn’t exactly complicated, but timing does matter. The time to take the rice off the cooker is after the water has cooked and the bottom layer of rice has started to toast. It must not be allowed to burn, however, or the dish is ruined. The toasted rice should be spread in a thin layer around the bowl, and the vegetables, fish or meat tenderly arranged on top.
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