At first, we felt like we should describe our attempt to make kanda from the Central African Republic as a comedy of errors. Only, we weren’t really laughing about it… and ‘errors’ suggests we did something wrong rather than simply being struck by one misfortune after another. Maybe a series of unfortunate events would be more accurate.
The actual national dish of the Central African Republic is poulet moambe, which appears to be the national dish of a lot of countries in this region. Having already made it for Gabon, we instead decided to make kanda, an interesting take on meatballs replaces half the beef with roasted pumpkin seeds. We’re generally quite wary of meatballs because they always take longer to make than you think they’re going to, but our fussy offspring often deigns to eat them and we saw this as a prime opportunity to sneak some nutrition into him, so we thought we’d give them a go.
The day we planned to make them was right in the middle of our home redecoration chaos. The house was a disaster zone. Ash was maniacally rushing around trying to get some skirting boards finished. Miranda was maniacally trying to entertain a bored toddler on a cold, dark wintry evening. Dinnertime was fast approaching and no one was prepping any meatballs yet. Knowing that Baby Mash usually likes to help make dinner, Miranda made a start, but the problem with two-year-olds is that their interest in things wanes very quickly and it takes longer than that to make meatballs.
Eventually Ash finished his skirting board mission and took over the cooking, but by this time there was no chance of us eating at a time civilised enough for the boss of the household (Baby Mash), so we did make the meatballs, but also made a thrown together pasta dish so we’d all have something to eat that night.
The next night we actually intended to make the full Central African dish, but in an attempt to placate Baby Mash who has recently decided he doesn’t like rice, we put half of them in a tomato sauce and served them with pasta (not very African) instead. On this occasion, Baby Mash didn’t want to eat the meatballs at the dinner table, even though he’d very happily eaten a sample one while they were cooking.
A few busy days passed, with the other half of the meatballs waiting in the fridge to be eaten. Then Miranda caught a stomach bug and didn’t want to eat anything. Knowing that they’d go off if they didn’t get eaten, Ash made some for himself and ate them with rice – finally, the Central African way! Baby Mash, on the other hand, opted instead for some toast.
That left about a quarter of the original batch of meatballs, which we ended up throwing away (which we hate doing!) because they’d been sitting in the fridge for too long and we didn’t want to chance any further stomach upsets.
After all that, what did we think of them? Well, they were all right. As we mentioned earlier, Baby Mash wasn’t a massive fan (although he did at least try them, which is something). Miranda and Ash didn’t mind them, but wouldn’t rush back to them either. The texture just wasn’t right: the meatballs themselves were quite dry and the sauce we were supposed to have somehow didn’t eventuate.
The issue with the meatballs, we think, was that pulverising the mince in a food processor beat all the moisture out of it. Perhaps processing the other ingredients, then mixing by hand in a large bowl would have been a better method. And we don’t know what we did wrong with the sauce. It wasn’t a sauce, though – it reduced down to just some bits of onion and tomato.
Kanda
Ingredients
675g beef mince
3 cups pumpkin seeds
2 onions, one roughly chopped and one sliced
6 cloves of garlic, peeled
4 tomatoes, peeled, deseeded and diced (as usual, we didn’t bother with the peeling and deseeding part)
2 chili peppers (left out for toddler purposes)
1 small bunch of parsley
2 cups cold water
1/2 cup oil
Salt and pepper
Rice, to serve
Method
1. Slightly roast the pumpkin seeds and then grind to a powder in a food processor.
2. In a food processor, mix the mince, pumpkin seed powder, parsley, garlic and the chopped onion. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Stir in 1/2 a cup of water and knead well for 3 minutes until a dough forms. Refrigerate until ready to use.
4. Saute the sliced onion in the oil for 2 minutes over medium heat in a large pot, stirring regularly.
5. Add the tomatoes and chillies and saute again, covered, for 5 minutes.
6. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups water and increase the heat until it is boiling, then turn down to low heat.
7. Form meatballs around the size of a golf ball.
8. Increase the heat and place each meatball in the sauce very carefully.
9. Cook over high heat for 10 minutes, then lower the heat to medium and cook for another 20 minutes, then simmer for a further 30 minutes.
10. Serve with rice.
Good Food on Bad Plates 