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Shrimp and Peanut Butter Sauce

In many cuisines of Central Africa, dried shrimp play an important role as a flavoring for stews and soups. In the Congo Delta a sauce is popular, which is made of dried shrimp, peanut butter, tomatoes and onions. It is eaten with yams or sweet potatoes. During his dreams in Kinshasa, Hektor Maille as well could enjoy this sauce. Entirely in accordance with the protocol, he ate it with Chikwangue, a sort of sausage from crushed and roasted cassava, which is wrapped in a banana leaf and cooked. The elastic, hardly aromatic but quite nutritious Chikwangue (also called Kwanga) is a traditional food of the Congo River Delta - one finds it sometimes in Europe in shops that are frequented by exiled Congolese.

1. Rinse the shrimp and soak for about 2 hours in 3 dl of hot water.
2. Heat oil and fry the onion with some salt in it.
3. Add tomatoes and chili and cook until they disintegrate into a sauce – about 5 minutes.
4. Drain shrimp and collect the soaking water.
5. Dissolve peanut butter in about 2 to 3 dl water (preferably take the soaking water of the shrimp). The dissolving can be a little hard at the beginning, but if you let sit the butter in the liquid for a moment, it will be easier.
6. Add the shrimp and the dissolved peanut butter to the sauce and cook for 15 minutes on gentle heat. Try to keep it sufficiently liquid –- if necessary, pour a little more water. Finally allow the sauce to thicken to a creamy consistency, season with salt.

The «Sauce aux Crevettes» is a pretty solid recipe. Even larger modifications can not throw it off course. On 25 November 2010 we made our sauce the subject of a small experiment - admittedly not entirely voluntary, but we had forgotten to buy tomatoes. Instead of the tomatoes recommended in the recipe, we cooked the sauce with three tablespoons of industrially produced Mexican tomato-pepper sauce, which is usually eaten raw. It was the only tomatoe-like thing we found on the evening in question in our Kitchen. We did dilute the Mexican Sauce in some water befoire adding it to our project. We expected the worst and were quiet sure that we would have to rely on the services of «Domino's» Pizza bakers. The result, however, more surprisingly was barely different from what we were used cooking the recipe with tomatoes. The spices in the Mexican sauce, that are so prominent on a tortilla chip, left almost no traces in our «Sauce aux Crevettes».

More about the travel adventure of Secret Agent Hektor Maille:

• Episode 15: Congo Dreams
• Startpage of «Mission Kaki» (with overview map)
• More Recipes of the Secret Agent

Even when there is no TV chef smiling at them, dried shrimps and deep-frozen chicken hearts are the ingredients of a menu that one can dream of, most certainly when one is sitting around as a secret agent in the Congo, not knowing what one should say about it:

• Sauce aux Crevettes (Shrimp and peanut butter sauce)
• Coeurs de Poulet à la Moambe (Chicken hearts with palm fruit sauce)
• Tapioca Cream (with coconut and passion fruit)

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