Sauce claire

Ingredients

The protein

• 1guinea fowl, jointed
• or 1 chicken, jointed
• or 250 g smoked fish
• soaked and boned
• or both together

The vegetables

• 3aubergines
• the small round African kind if you can
• or 2 ordinary aubergines, cubed
• 4tomatoes, chopped
• 2onions, chopped
• 2or 3 hot chillies
• whole or slit

The base

• 2 tablespoonsoil
• 4 clovesgarlic, crushed
• a thumb of ginger, grated
• 1 tablespoontomato purée
• 1stock cube
• about 1.2 litres water
• salt and black pepper
• a bay leaf, optional

Sometimes added

• 1aubergine, blended
• to thicken lightly
• a handful of okra
• a squeeze of lemon
• 1 teaspoonground pepper soup spice

To serve

• foutou
• or placali
• or rice
• a chilli sauce

Directions

1. Soak it in hot water twenty minutes. Pick out the bones carefully. West African stews often keep the bones in.
2. Bone it properly for children. It is thin and it should stay thin. Heat the oil in a large pot. Add the chopped onions. Cook them for about eight minutes.
3. Add the garlic and ginger. Cook them for two minutes. Add the purée and cook it briefly. Add the chopped tomatoes.
4. Cook them down for about eight minutes. You do not need to reduce this base hard. Add the water and the stock cube. Add the bay leaf. Bring it to a simmer. Add the guinea fowl or chicken.
5. Simmer it covered. Guinea fowl needs forty minutes. Pierce the thickest part near the bone. The juices should run clear. Add them halfway through the cooking. Cubed aubergine needs about twenty minutes. Add them whole or slit.
6. Add it in the last fifteen minutes. It needs only to warm through and flavour the broth. Season with salt and black pepper. Taste the broth. It should taste strongly of itself.
7. Serve it in a bowl with plenty of broth. Serve foutou or placali alongside. It is cooked to a smooth elastic mass. Take a piece of the starch with the right hand. Press a dent into it. Scoop up the broth. It keeps three days refrigerated.

Technique

• Keep it thin. Sauce claire earns its name — the temptation is to reduce it into a stew, and that makes a different dish entirely. What body it has comes from the aubergine, and blending one cooked aubergine back in thickens it lightly without making it heavy.
• Season it harder than feels right. A thin sauce hides nothing — underseasoned, it tastes like water.
• Guinea fowl takes about forty minutes rather than chicken’s twenty-five. It is leaner, dries out more readily and has more connective tissue, which is why it suits a simmer rather than a roast.
• Add the smoked fish in the last fifteen minutes. It only needs to warm through and flavour the broth.
• Soak smoked fish in hot water for twenty minutes to soften it and draw out salt, then bone it carefully. Warn anyone unused to picking bones out, and bone it properly for children.
• The bitterness of African aubergine varieties is wanted here rather than a fault to remove. Ordinary purple aubergine works and gives a milder, softer, less bitter sauce.
• Whole chillies give aroma with little heat, slit ones give more, chopped ones the full force. Choose deliberately.
• Do not reduce the tomato base hard. This is a light sauce and the tomatoes only need to break down.
• Guinea fowl and smoked fish together is common — the fish deepens the broth and the bird gives the meat.
• Check the bird at the thickest part near the bone: juices running clear and no pink.
• A squeeze of lemon at the end sharpens a light broth considerably.
• The broth is drunk as much as eaten, spooned or taken from the bowl. That is genuinely part of the dish.
• Placali is fermented cassava dough, smooth and slightly sour, and that sourness against a light broth is a deliberate contrast.

Substitutions

• Chicken replaces guinea fowl and cooks faster.
• Smoked fish alone replaces the bird entirely.
• Ordinary purple aubergine replaces the small African kind, giving a milder sauce.
• Okra can be added for a little body.
• Rice replaces foutou or placali where those are impractical.
• A vegetarian version with vegetables and no fish follows the same method.

Variations

• Sauce arachide is the thick peanut sauce at the other end of the same table.
• Sauce graine uses palm fruit pulp and is richer still.
• Sauce gombo uses okra and is deliberately slippery.
• Kedjenou cooks chicken and vegetables sealed in a pot with almost no liquid.
• Pepper soup across West Africa uses a similar light aromatic broth.
• A version with more okra and a thicker body is made in some households.

Frequently asked questions

What is Sauce claire?

Sauce claire is a soup & stew from Côte d’Ivoire: light aubergine-tomato broth with smoked fish or guinea fowl.

How long does Sauce claire take to make?

Sauce claire takes 25 minutes of preparation and 50 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 6. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Sauce claire?

Yes, within limits. Chicken replaces guinea fowl and cooks faster. Smoked fish alone replaces the bird entirely. Ordinary purple aubergine replaces the small African kind, giving a milder sauce. Okra can be added for a little body. Rice replaces foutou or placali where those are impractical. A vegetarian version with vegetables and no fish follows the same method.

What is the most important thing to get right in Sauce claire?

Cook them down for about eight minutes. You do not need to reduce this base hard. Add the water and the stock cube. Add the bay leaf. Bring it to a simmer. Add the guinea fowl or chicken.