Recipe: Okra Sauce

 Okra abounds this time of year, including in my own backyard, so I invited a friend over a few weeks ago to teach me how to make okra sauce. Standard okra sauce has a distinctly mucous-like texture and color, which is why it is known amongst Peace Corps Volunteers as "snot sauce", but my friend and I made the more delicious and non-snotty version that calls for tomato paste.

So how do you make non-snotty okra sauce? First, wash your okra and slice them into thin slices.

Next, heat up some palm oil and mix in a can of tomato paste.

Next, add the "sauce ingredients" and salt. Anything that doesn't come in powdered form needs to be pureed in advance.

Top left: hot pepper powder. Top right: garlic. Bottom left: pepper. Bottom right: a mysterious ingredient specific to this region. Not pictured: salt.

Also stir in this ingredient, which the Beninese call "mustard". It in no way resembles the mustard of the Western world, but it adds a unique flavor to the sauce.

Next, toss in your okra and some water. To speed up cooking time, add some potasse, which will make the okra cook faster.

Potasse to reduce cooking time and save on charcoal.

The sauce is almost ready.

When the okra is cooked, it is time to eat. Here in Sonsoro, we eat okra sauce with akassa or pate.

Time to eat! We enjoyed our sauce with some akassa made by my friend's wife.

Bon appetit!