Ifisashi

Zambian greens simmered in ground groundnut until the sauce clings: the relish that answers the protein gap in a maize diet

Origin: Lusaka & Zambia

From the journey of Peanut.

Ifisashi is the Bemba word for greens cooked in groundnut, and it is the relish a Zambian household makes most often. Nshima, the stiff maize porridge, is the meal; ifisashi is what makes it a meal. Pumpkin leaves, sweet potato leaves, rape, or cassava leaves all go into it depending on the season, and the groundnut is ground fine and stirred in near the end so that it thickens the pot and coats the greens rather than sitting under them. Zimbabwe makes muriwo unedovi and Malawi ndiwo ya nzungu, and all three are the same idea arrived at along the same maize belt. Zambians will point out that theirs takes more groundnut and is often built with beans or a little dried fish worked through it, and that ifisashi is thick enough to be eaten on its own where the others are strictly accompaniments. The pairing is nutritional sense reached long before anyone could have explained it. A diet resting on maize is short of protein and of several micronutrients, and the groundnut supplies both at a price a smallholder can meet. Zambia grows groundnuts across the Eastern and Central provinces, and chikanda aside, it is the crop that does most to fill the gap that maize leaves. It is cooked without meat as a matter of course rather than as a concession, which makes it one of the more naturally vegan dishes on the continent, and dried fish or a little meat is an addition rather than an assumption.

Ingredients

  • 800 g pumpkin leaves, rape, or spring greens, shredded
  • 150 g roasted groundnuts, ground fine, or 150g unsweetened peanut butter
  • 2 tomatoes, chopped
  • 1 large onion, chopped
  • 3 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 2 tbsp oil
  • 1 green chilli, chopped (optional)
  • 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste
  • 350 ml water

Method

  1. Strip the tough stalks from the greens and shred the leaves finely. Pumpkin leaves want their stringy fibres pulled away first.
  2. Bring the water to the boil in a pot, add the greens, and cook for eight minutes until just tender. Do not drain.
  3. In a separate pan, fry the onion and garlic in the oil until soft, about six minutes, then add the tomatoes and cook down for eight minutes to a thick base.
  4. Stir the tomato base into the greens along with the salt and the chilli, if using.
  5. Slake the ground groundnut with a ladleful of the hot liquid from the pot until smooth, then stir it in. Slaking first is what stops it going lumpy.
  6. Simmer uncovered for a further twelve to fifteen minutes, stirring often, until the sauce thickens noticeably and the groundnut loses its raw taste.
  7. The finished ifisashi should coat the greens and hold together on a spoon rather than sit in liquid beneath them. Taste for salt and serve with nshima.

Notes

Grinding your own roasted groundnuts gives a better texture than peanut butter, though either works; the sweetened kind does not. Slake before adding and cook for a full twelve minutes afterwards, or the raw bean taste stays. Zambians take this thicker than the Malawian and Zimbabwean versions, so reduce further than seems necessary. A handful of cooked beans stirred in at the end is common and makes it a meal in itself.

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Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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