How to Make Burkina Tomato Sauce

    Burkina Tomato Sauce

by Lemie (a RW 7 student)

Cooking for pleasure or other objectives is a common thing almost everywhere even if the way it is done, the frequency and the tools are different from one culture to another. Tomato sauce is an international dish, but it is very different everywhere. The tomato sauce in Burkina Faso is very easy to cook and is delicious. To learn how to cook our sauce, just follow these easy steps.

Gathering the ingredients and the tools is the first step, and one of the most important. Fresh vegetables give a different taste to what is being cooked. Juicy tomatoes, red onions that are not sweet, green pepper and zucchini are what you need for this sauce. The spices are garlic, parsley, black-grounded pepper, bouillon, salt and any kind of meat. Besides the vegetables, the pot you will use must be deep and have a cover. Use a wood ladle, which is good for crushing the vegetables.

  Once you have everything gathered, it is time to start the second step, which is cooking. All the vegetables must be cut in small pieces. Your meat cooking time will differ depending on what kind you have. Beef and lamb will take two times more than chicken. To have delicious meat, cut it in small pieces and put it in a pot with a half-cup of water, garlic, black pepper, salt and cover it. Put your burner on medium. While the meat is cooking, put another pot on burner; add half a cup of oil and fry the onions for a minute. Gradually add the green pepper, the zucchini, the tomatoes, and stir to make sure it doesn’t burn. Cover for five minutes, stir again and cover it. When there is no more water in the meat, add half a cup of oil and fry it until it is crispy. Go back to the sauce and add two cups of water stir and add your spices (garlic, black pepper, bouillon and salt), season it, as you like. Let it cook on a medium temperature for fifteen minutes, then on low for ten minutes. If your sauce is too sour, you can add some potash*.

The delicious sauce you cooked must be accompanied by something, and that is our third step. The sauce’s creaminess is not the same for every accompaniment. With rice, it won’t be as thick as with pastas or boiled potatoes. In Burkina Faso, we serve it hot because you can feel the deliciousness better. For those who like hot spices, fresh red chili will incredibly enhance the taste, and you will love it for sure. Just put one chili while the sauce is boiling and let it cook for five minutes.

 It is easy to cook the tomato sauce from Burkina Faso only by properly following the steps to do it. The ingredients are easy to find and cook. Almost every dish in Burkina has these basic vegetables: onions, tomatoes, and green pepper.

                                 Ingredients for Four Servings

•  ½ pound of meat
• 4 juicy tomatoes
• 2 medium onions
•  1medium green pepper
•  2 small zucchini
• Garlic, parsley, ground black pepper, salt, bouillon
•  1 cup of oil    

   
*POTASH is the common name for various mined and manufactured salts that contain potassium in water-soluble form.  The name derives from “pot ash”, which refers to plant ashes soaked in water in a pot