Food is another important componente of Angolan culture, so we will share a new Angolan recipe every month in this section. We are aware that it’s not always possible to find the exact same ingredients all over the world, so for those ingredients that may be a little more difficult to find we’ll try to put some possible alternatives. We hope you try these recipes at home and we’d love to hear/see the results: you can use the #joinangola hashtag when posting pictures of your Angolan dishes!

DRIED FISH CALULU

Calulu is a simple dish in its realisation, but it takes a variety of ingredients that make it very complete and rich. The recipe for Calulu is originary from the North of the country, and was later exported to other regions of Angola, where meat appears more than fish, which is the reason for its variations. Today, there are several types of Calulu: dried fish Calulu, fresh fish Calulu, mixed, in addition to the dried meat Calulu, and sometimes even mixed with fresh meat. The procedure is very similar in all cases. Here goes the recipe for the dried fish Calulu.

 

A plate with fungi (a white starch similar to Italian polenta), fish and vegetables.
Calulu

   


Preparation time: 45 minutes

Type of dish: complete dish to be accompanied with funji

 

INGREDIENTS

  • Dried fish (it may be the cormorant, corvina, …, ray, sagera, or any type of dried fish of sufficient size)
  • Onions
  • Tomatoes
  • Okra
  • Eggplant
  • Sweet potato leaves (can be substituted by jimbõa, more used in the North)

PREPARATION

First remove the salt from the fish, placing it in a bowl with cold water for 2 to 3 hours. At the end of this time change the first water, conserving the second one. Then, take a pot and place the fish in it, together with the onions, the sweet potato leaves, the eggplant, the okra and the tomatoes (all cut into pieces). Finally, pour the palm oil (or another oil), turn on the stove and add the second fish water until you reach the middle of the pan. Adjust the salt (according to the saltiness of the fish) and cover the pan. Cook the Calulu for about 20 minutes. While cooking, stir the Calulu being careful not to crush the fish at the bottom of the pan. After 20 minutes the Calulu is ready to be served, accompanied with a good hot funji.

ALTERNATIVES

Fresh fish Calulu: forgetting about the desalination part, the fresh fish Calulu preparation is pretty much the same as the one for the dry fish Calulu; only the cooking times are different (max. 35 min) according to the texture of the fish used.

Dried meat: the dried meat Calulu preparation procedure is the same as the dry fish Calulu, the only difference being a longer cooking time (max. 45 minutes).

Written by: Maria Vittoria Moretti

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