Riz Gras

Guinea's one-pot rice, browned meat and vegetables simmered in a deep tomato broth and the rice then cooked in it until the grains have taken up everything

Origin: Conakry and the Fouta Djallon, Guinea

From the journey of Rice.

Riz gras, fat rice, is the everyday one-pot of Guinea and much of the western Sahel, and it is the plainer cousin of Senegal's thiéboudienne. Meat and vegetables are browned, a tomato broth is built on them, and the rice is then cooked in that broth rather than separately, so the grains finish deep orange and heavy with everything the pot held. Guinea has a claim on West African rice that most of its neighbours do not. Oryza glaberrima, African rice, was domesticated in the inland delta of the Niger some three thousand years ago, independently of Asian rice, and the Upper Guinea forest and the Fouta Djallon highlands are part of its range. The two species now grow side by side, and the knowledge that grew around the African one crossed the Atlantic with enslaved farmers and built the rice economies of South Carolina and Suriname. Groundnut runs through the Guinean kitchen alongside the rice: soupe de feuilles, leafy greens cooked down with smoked fish, and groundnut sauce with lamb or Atlantic fish are the other two everyday dishes. The forest zone in the south-east produces coffee and kola, both of which carry ceremonial weight beyond their culinary use.

Ingredients

Meat

  • 700 g lamb, beef, or chicken on the bone, in pieces

Rice

  • 500 g long-grain rice, rinsed

Aromatics

  • 2 large onions, sliced
  • 4 cloves garlic, crushed

Broth

  • 4 tbsp tomato purée
  • 3 tomatoes, chopped

Fat

  • 120 ml groundnut oil

Liquid

  • 1.1 litres water

Vegetables

  • 2 carrots, in chunks
  • 0.25 white cabbage, in wedges
  • 1 aubergine, cubed

Seasoning

  • 1 scotch bonnet, whole and pricked
  • 2 stock cubes
  • 1 tsp salt, to taste
  • 1 tsp ground black pepper

Method

  1. Brown the meat hard in the oil in a wide heavy pot, in batches, and lift it out.
  2. Soften the onions in the same oil for ten minutes, add the garlic, then the tomato purée, and fry for eight minutes until it darkens noticeably and the oil separates.
  3. Add the chopped tomatoes, the browned meat, the stock cubes, pepper, and the water. Simmer, covered, for thirty minutes.
  4. Add the carrot, cabbage, and aubergine and cook for fifteen minutes until just tender, then lift the vegetables and meat out and keep them warm.
  5. Measure the broth: you want about 900 ml for 500 g of rice. Top up or reduce as needed, and check the salt now.
  6. Stir the rinsed rice into the broth, bring to a simmer, cover very tightly, and cook on the lowest heat for twenty-five minutes without lifting the lid.
  7. Rest off the heat for ten minutes, then fork through and serve on a wide platter with the meat and vegetables arranged over the top.

Notes

Riz gras is the everyday version of the same idea that produces thiéboudienne in Senegal and jollof further east; the differences are the fish, the stuffing, and the broken rice. Guinea sits within the range of Oryza glaberrima, African rice, which was domesticated in the Niger delta independently of the Asian species. Smoked fish or a spoonful of fermented locust bean deepens the broth considerably and is common.

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