Yétissé Fish Stew - Main course

Preparation time : | 40 min |
Cooking time : | 1 hr |
Location : | Maritime Guinea |
Vegetarian : | Yes |
Difficulty : | Medium |
With : | Fish, Rice, Vegetables |
Cost : | Medium |
Cooking method : | Hobs / Fire |
This is typically a stew from the Conakryka (inhabitants of the capital).
Although Fish Stew is popular in most of West Africa cities by the sea, this one is special with the eggplants and all others vegetables like the okras mixed with the rice.
Ingredients (For 12 serves)
3 kg of fresh fish (Tilapia, captain, cod or tuna (sosso's name are sinapa, Kessi Kessi or Fagba)
2-3 eggplants
8 carotts
3 kassavas ou 12 potatoes
10 onions
5 cloves of garlic
2 smalls cans of tomatoes paste
400 gr of fresh tomatoes
4 bouillon cube ( Maggi, jumbo or others)
2 small glass of fresh Palm oil
2 hot peppers (ideally from Mamou)
4 fresh bird's chilli
500 gr of okra pods
1 kg of rice

Preparation
My 4 Tilapia fishes
- Empty and cleanThe fish under the tap water
- Cut into 1 ½ inch thick steaks
- Score the steaks with a sharp knife
- Add lemon juice on all pieces and salt.
- Flour the fish steaks
- Heat the oil in a large stockpot and brown the fish on each side.
- Remove and reserve the fish covered with absorbing paper.
- While frying the fish, peel and cut the onion in small strips.
- Wash eggplants, remove the peduncle and to cut them from in lengths.
- In a stockpot, heat 3 tablespoons of oil to brown the onions and eggplants.
- Remove the whole when the eggplant is soft.
Blend the following ingredients together to obtain an homogeneous paste:
- Peeled and grated Ginger
- Peeled and pressed garlic
- Cooked and browned eggplants and onions.
Peel and dice the cassavas and carotts into 1-2 inch pieces
- Wash and cut tomatoes in small pieces.
- Add the tomatoes’ paste, the bouillon cube, the finely chopped chive and the bird’s chilly pepper.
- Poor in the mixture of tomatoes above and let it simmers for 5 – 10 minutes.
- Then add the carrots and cassava
- Poor in the eggplant’s paste. Stir all together.
- Cover with water
- Salt and pepper too taste,
- Bring to boil, lower the heat cover and let simmer for 20 minutes.
- Pick vegetables with a fork to check if cooked
- Add the golden fish’s steaks, and let still simmer for another 15 minutes.
- Add the entire hot pepper 5 minutes before the end of the cooking. It allows perfuming the sauce without making it too hot.
- Meanwhile, cook the rice and the fresh okras podes cut into small pieces
- Crush gumbos and mix in the rice
As soon as the stew sauce is ready, serve it with the okras’s rice.
Enjoy!
Tips and Tricks
You can replace the fish by meat (beef or chicken).
Vegetables can varies according to the season, on the other hand, the eggplant is essential for the sauce’s texture.