Recipes from the Centre Region
The Centre region is Yaoundé and Beti country. It is also everyday Cameroonian cooking: sauces ready in under an hour, served with rice, plantain or cassava. Lumo has nine recipes from the Centre. Sanga brings together fresh corn, nzom leaves and palm-nut juice. Okra sauce with beef and dried shrimp takes 45 minutes. Groundnut sauce, pistache (egusi) sauce and sautéed beans are weekday staples. For a slow Sunday, cow-foot broth simmers for more than three hours. One tip works for almost all of these sauces: brown the meat without water first, so it releases its own juices and gives the sauce its depth. Every recipe gives quantities for two people, and Lumo delivers every ingredient to your door in Yaoundé.
- Beef Trotter Broth Centre · 3 hr 20 min
A slow-simmered Cameroonian broth: beef trotters cooked low and long with country spices into a thick, gelatinous, deeply savoury soup.
- Cameroonian Tomato Sauce Centre · 50 min
A simple home-style tomato sauce: fresh tomatoes and country spices slow-cooked with fish or meat, served over rice.
- Egusi soup Centre · 1 hr
An old-style egusi (pistache) sauce cooked with tomato: ground melon seeds simmered into a thick, savoury sauce.
- Fried vegetables (Nzom) Centre · 35 min
A quick, colourful Cameroonian sautéed-greens dish: zom (nzom) leaves blanched to stay bright, then tossed with onion, tomato, garlic and crayfish.
- Groundnut Sauce (Maffé) Centre · 45 min
A smooth Cameroonian peanut sauce: tomato and peanut paste simmered with chicken or meat, seasoned with country spices.
- Okra Beef Sauce Centre · 45 min
A glossy okra sauce with tender beef, cow skin, crayfish and chili. Quick, light and best eaten with a swallow.
- Sanga Centre · 1 hr 10 min
A Centre-region dish of fresh maize and nzom leaves cooked in palm-nut juice, lightly sweetened.
- Sauted red beans Centre · 55 min
A homely Cameroonian fried-bean dish: boiled red beans folded into a fragrant tomato sauce built on sautéed meat, blended aromatics and basil.
- Sauted white beans Centre · 55 min
Sautéed white beans cooked with tender meat in a simple sauce of tomato, onion, bell pepper and green seasonings. Light, protein-rich and quick.