Télibo

Ingredients

The flour

• 600 gdried yam flour
• sold as elubo or as farine d’igname
• sifted
• about 1.5 litres water
• adjust as you go

The okra sauce

• 300 gfresh okra, finely chopped
• or grated
• 2 tablespoonsred palm oil
• or groundnut oil
• 1onion, finely chopped
• 3tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tablespoonsground crayfish
• or dried shrimp, ground
• 1hot chilli, chopped
• 500 mlstock or water
• salt, to taste

Or the peanut sauce

• 200 gsmooth peanut butter
• unsweetened
• or 200 g ground roasted peanuts
• 1onion, chopped
• 3tomatoes, chopped
• 2 tablespoonstomato purée
• 1 litrestock
• 1hot chilli
• salt, to taste

Sometimes served with

• smoked fish, flaked
• or grilled meat
• or bean fritters
• a bowl of drinking water

Directions

1. Take small pieces if you are new to eating this way. Never give large pieces to a small child. Sift it before use to break up any lumps. Store it airtight and completely dry afterwards.
2. Wash the okra and dry it completely. Wet okra is slippery and hard to cut safely. Trim the stalk ends but not the pointed tips. Chop it very finely or grate it coarsely. That texture is what helps the swallow go down. Heat the palm oil in a wide pan over medium heat. Do not let it smoke, which spoils the taste.
3. Add the chopped onion and cook until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook them down well. Add the ground crayfish and the chopped chilli. Add the stock and bring it to a simmer.
4. Season it with salt and taste it carefully. Five to seven minutes is quite enough. Take it off the heat while still bright green. Fry the onion in oil until soft and golden. Add the tomatoes and the tomato purée. Cook it down until the oil separates out. That separation is the sign it is ready.
5. Work it into a smooth loose paste first. Adding it thick straight to the pan makes lumps. Stir the thinned peanut paste into the pan. Add the remaining stock and the whole chilli. Simmer it gently for twenty to thirty minutes.
6. Stir it often, because peanut sauce catches easily. The oil will rise to the surface when it is done. Season it with salt and taste it again. Bring the water to a boil in a heavy pot. Use a pot with a genuinely thick base. Thin pots scorch the dough and ruin it.
7. Hold back some flour and some hot water. You will need both to adjust the texture. Add the yam flour in a steady stream. Stir hard and constantly as you pour it in. Use a strong wooden spoon or a flat paddle. It becomes very stiff and hard to stir.
8. Hold the pot steady with a cloth as you stir. Better still, wedge it against something firm. Keep stirring and pressing out any lumps. Press lumps against the side of the pot.
9. Fold the dough over on itself repeatedly. Cook it for about ten minutes in total. It must cook through to lose that taste. Add a splash of hot water if it is too stiff. Add a little more flour if it is too loose. The finished dough should be smooth and elastic.
10. Scoop out a portion into the wet bowl. Swirl it around to form a smooth round. Turn it out onto a plate straight away. The dough is scalding hot at this stage. Serve it immediately with the sauce beside it. Wash your right hand before eating with it. Eating is done with the right hand only.

Technique

• Swallow foods are pinched off, dipped and swallowed without chewing. That is a learned skill and it carries a genuine choking risk for anyone unpractised. Take small pieces if you are new to it, never give large pieces to a young child, and keep water on the table.
• Make the sauce first and the dough last. Télibo stiffens and turns rubbery within a couple of hours and does not reheat well; the sauce keeps for days.
• Yam flour is made by parboiling, sun-drying and milling fresh yam, and the darkening during drying is why télibo is nearly black. It is a preservation method that lets a short annual harvest feed a household through the dry season.
• Stirring the dough is genuinely hard work and the pot will try to slide. Wedge it or hold it with a cloth — a pot moving on a hob with scalding stiff dough in it is a real burn risk.
• Okra sauce is meant to be slippery. That draw is not a fault; it is what makes the swallow go down. Cook the okra only five to seven minutes, or the texture and the colour are both lost.
• Peanut allergy can be severe, and ground crayfish is a shellfish allergen. Tell guests what is in the sauce.
• Cultivated food yams are entirely safe cooked. Some wild yam species are toxic raw and need long soaking and repeated boiling — noted here only so that nobody experiments with wild roots.

Substitutions

• Ground roasted peanuts replace peanut butter; grind them to a paste and thin them the same way.
• Groundnut oil replaces red palm oil, though the colour and the characteristic flavour are lost.
• Dried ground shrimp replaces ground crayfish closely.
• Frozen chopped okra replaces fresh and works well, since it is added briefly at the end anyway.
• Vegetable stock replaces meat stock for a vegetarian sauce; leave out the crayfish and add extra seasoning.
• Other West African swallows — pounded yam, amala, eba — take exactly the same sauces if yam flour is unavailable.

Variations

• Amala is the closely related Yoruba swallow from the same dried yam flour, eaten in Nigeria with ewedu and gbegiri.
• A version made with a mixture of yam and plantain flour is lighter in colour and slightly sweeter.
• Télibo with sauce d’arachide, the peanut sauce, is the richer version; with okra it is lighter and more everyday.
• Some households serve it with a tomato and pepper sauce rather than okra or peanut.
• Pounded fresh yam, igname pilée, is the festival dish that dried yam flour stands in for out of season.
• A version served with sauce made from baobab leaf appears in the drier north.

History

Made in Benin’s central yam belt from yam sliced, dried and milled, a way to store the harvest through the dry season.

Frequently asked questions

What is Télibo?

Télibo is a main from Benin: near-black swallow of dried yam flour eaten with okra or peanut sauce. Made in Benin’s central yam belt from yam sliced, dried and milled, a way to store the harvest through the dry season.

How long does Télibo take to make?

Télibo takes 10 minutes of preparation and 20 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 6. It is rated medium to make.

What can I substitute in Télibo?

Yes, within limits. Ground roasted peanuts replace peanut butter; grind them to a paste and thin them the same way. Groundnut oil replaces red palm oil, though the colour and the characteristic flavour are lost. Dried ground shrimp replaces ground crayfish closely. Frozen chopped okra replaces fresh and works well, since it is added briefly at the end anyway. Vegetable stock replaces meat stock for a vegetarian sauce; leave out the crayfish and add extra seasoning. Other West African swallows — pounded yam, amala, eba — take exactly the same sauces if yam flour is unavailable.

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

Take small pieces if you are new to eating this way. Never give large pieces to a small child. Sift it before use to break up any lumps. Store it airtight and completely dry afterwards.