Bafas

Ingredients

Choose one or more

• 400 gfirm white fish
• tuna, wahoo or grouper
• cut into bite-sized cubes
• or 400 g fresh chouriço
• the Cape Verdean pork sausage
• sliced thickly
• or 400 g pork belly, diced
• or 400 g cleaned offal
• liver, heart or gizzards

The seasoning

• 4 clovesgarlic, crushed
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• 1 teaspoonblack pepper
• juice of 2 limes
• 1 tablespoonwhite wine
• optional
• 1bay leaf, crumbled
• 1 teaspoonpaprika
• half a teaspoon ground cumin

For frying

• 3 tablespoonsoil
• or more, for deeper frying
• 1onion, sliced
• optional

To serve

• cocktail sticks
• lime wedges
• piri-piri or malagueta sauce
• grogue, the sugarcane spirit
• or beer

Directions

1. Rinse it thoroughly under cold running water. Trim away any tubes, membranes and sinew. Liver has a tough outer membrane that should be peeled off. Soak liver in milk or salted water for thirty minutes if you like. Offal must be cooked through rather than left pink.
2. Cook it right through and check it. Put the fish, sausage, pork or offal in a bowl. Add the crushed garlic and the salt. Add the pepper, paprika and cumin. Crumble in the bay leaf.
3. Add the lime juice and the wine if using. Turn everything to coat it thoroughly. Meat and offal can sit for an hour or more.
4. Marinate in the refrigerator rather than on the counter. Discard the marinade after the raw food comes out. Never reuse it as a sauce without boiling it hard.
5. Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan. Get it genuinely hot before anything goes in. Lift the pieces out of the marinade. Pat them dry with kitchen paper.
6. Fry in batches if the pan is small. Fish cubes need two or three minutes only. Add it partway through so it softens and colours. Taste one and correct the salt. Squeeze over more lime juice at the end. Tip them into a small dish while still hot.
7. Put cocktail sticks alongside for picking them up. Put lime wedges on the table. Put a bottle of piri-piri sauce there too. Cape Verde has its own hot sauces made from them. Make small quantities and make more if needed. Raw marinated fish keeps a day refrigerated.

Technique

• Bafas is a category rather than one recipe — it names the role the dish plays, something small and salty to pick at while drinking, in the way tapas or petiscos do. Fish, chouriço, pork belly and offal are all standard.
• Marinate fish for twenty minutes at most. Lime juice begins to cure it, turning the surface opaque and firm; left longer it becomes ceviche, which is a fine dish but not this one. Meat and offal can sit an hour or more.
• Pat the pieces dry after lifting them from the marinade. Wet food steams instead of browning and the difference is visible on the plate.
• Fry in a single layer without crowding the pan. Crowding drops the temperature and everything stews in its own liquid.
• Cook offal right through rather than leaving it pink. Liver, kidney and heart can carry bacteria through the tissue, unlike a whole-muscle steak.
• Buy offal genuinely fresh from a butcher who turns stock over quickly — it spoils faster than muscle meat and should smell clean, not sour. Peel liver’s outer membrane, split hearts and rinse out clotted blood, and strip the tough inner lining from gizzards.
• Liver contains a very large amount of vitamin A, and pregnant people are advised to avoid it entirely. As an occasional small dish it is not a concern; the atlas notes the standard advice and makes no further medical claim.
• Marinate in the refrigerator and discard the marinade once the raw food comes out. Never use it as a sauce unless it is boiled hard first.
• Watch the fish closely — two or three minutes to just opaque. It turns dry and fibrous within another minute.
• Grogue is distilled from fresh sugarcane juice rather than molasses, which makes it a relative of rhum agricole and cachaça. It is strong and served neat in small glasses; ponche, sweetened with honey or molasses, is the gentler version.
• The Portuguese layer in Cape Verdean food — chouriço, bay leaf, garlic, wine — sits alongside West African foods and techniques. The islands were uninhabited before Portuguese settlement and the population descends largely from settlers and enslaved West Africans, which is why the cooking looks as it does.

Substitutions

• Any firm white fish replaces tuna; soft fish falls apart in the pan.
• Portuguese or Spanish chouriço replaces the Cape Verdean sausage closely.
• Pork belly, chicken livers or gizzards all work; use whatever is fresh.
• Lemon replaces lime, giving a slightly different but perfectly good acidity.
• The wine can be left out entirely without harming the dish.
• Any hot sauce replaces piri-piri; malagueta-based sauces are what is actually used.

Variations

• A pure fish version, usually tuna, is the commonest on the coastal islands.
• A version of chouriço alone, fried with onion, is the simplest of all.
• Fried gizzards, moelas, are a Portuguese petisco made the same way.
• Chicken livers fried with garlic and wine are another standard small plate.
• Cachupa, the slow-cooked maize and bean stew, is Cape Verde’s national dish and a very different thing.
• Pastel com diabo dentro, a fried tuna pastry, is another Cape Verdean snack.

Frequently asked questions

What is Bafas?

Bafas is a snack from Cape Verde: small plates of fried fish, sausage or offal set out to drink grogue with.

How long does Bafas take to make?

Bafas takes 20 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 6 as a snack. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Bafas?

Yes, within limits. Any firm white fish replaces tuna; soft fish falls apart in the pan. Portuguese or Spanish chouriço replaces the Cape Verdean sausage closely. Pork belly, chicken livers or gizzards all work; use whatever is fresh. Lemon replaces lime, giving a slightly different but perfectly good acidity. The wine can be left out entirely without harming the dish. Any hot sauce replaces piri-piri; malagueta-based sauces are what is actually used.

What is the most important thing to get right in Bafas?

Rinse it thoroughly under cold running water. Trim away any tubes, membranes and sinew. Liver has a tough outer membrane that should be peeled off. Soak liver in milk or salted water for thirty minutes if you like. Offal must be cooked through rather than left pink.