Culinary Tour of the World: Episode 5: Angola - Bombo Frito and Pe-de-Moleque

Welcome to our fifth episode of the Culinary Tour of the World. This post takes us to Angola. Angola is a country in Africa. As I was researching the cuisine for the project, I came across many exotic meat dishes. I also found that there are many fruits grown here but they are usually eaten as fresh fruits for dessert. I was able to find a few vegetarian dishes, like beans in palm oil, a hearty vegetable and bulgur soup and a couple of desserts like the passionfruit mousse and Cocada Amarela which is a coconut pudding. I also found a couple of rice recipes, but some of the unusual ingredients like peanut butter and bananas being added to the rice made me hesitate from trying it out in the fear that I may not like the combination.

As I read about local foods and watched some videos, I noticed that the cassava plant is really popular here and all of the parts of the plant are used.  And another popular snack was peanuts. Roasted peanuts, sweetened peanuts, candied peanuts in sugar and candied peanuts in caramel. So, I finally decided to make snacks from Angola for this series.

Both the dishes that I chose were new to me. Pe-de-moleque is a peanut candy or brittle in caramel syrup and Bombo Frito are fried cassava roots. I had never made peanut brittle before though I have eaten it a lot in the form of "chikki". Chikki is a peanut brittle version available in India and the pe-de-moleque comes very close to the Maganlal dry fruit chikki from Lonavala, Maharashtra in India. The cassava root was also very interesting because while I have eaten tapioca (sabudana) which is made from cassava,  I hadn't eaten or even seen the cassava root. So I was very excited to make both these recipes. 

Both the resulting recipes were absolutely delicious. I deep fried as well as air fried the cassava. Based on the taste test, the fried version of bombo frito was the favorite, as it was crunchier but the air fried version was also delicious. Given that cassava root is also grilled in Angola, the air fried version probably comes closer to the grilled version. The pe-de-moleque was very rich in the caramel taste and just perfect. The caramel was not sticky and we thoroughly enjoyed it. I plan to use the same method and substitute the peanuts with almonds and cashews to create the Maganlal chikki. 

I will eventually try out all the different vegetarian foods that I collected from the internet and books, and add them to the blog. I am really looking forward to making the passionfruit mousse once our passionfruit starts fruiting. But these two recipes are definitely going to be added to my cooking repertoire.

Here is the link to the video of the recipe

Ingredients

For the bombo frito
cassava root, peeled and cut into rectangles. OR frozen, peeled and cubed cassava

water, enough to cover all the cassava pieces well

oil for deep frying

salt, to taste

pepper, to taste

if using air fryer - use 1 tsp oil

For the pe-de-moleque

1 cup sugar

1 cup peanuts

1/2 cup water

Method

For the bombo frito

If you have fresh cassava, peel it and then cut it into rectangles, like steak fries. Then bring a pot of water to boil and add these to the water. Cook it for 15-20 minute till they are partially cooked and tender but still have a bite and retain the shape. If you are using frozen, peeled cubes they will be cooked in about 10 mins after adding to the water. Drain and spread on a colander to dry out. 

To deep fry

Heat oil to deep fry the cassava. Dry out the cassava with a paper towel if still a little wet. DO NOT add watery cassava to hot oil. The oil will splutter and can cause oil burns. To test if the oil is hot, add a piece of the root to the oil. If it comes up quickly, then the oil is hot. Add all the pieces to the oil and fry till you get a golden brown color. Stir occasionally so that the root is fried evenly.

To air fry

Toss the boiled cassava pieces with a tsp of oil. Then place it in the air fryer and fry it at 375F.  Shake it evert 3-4 minutes for even browning and it will take about 11-14 minutes to be cooked. 

Toss the chips with salt and pepper while hot. 

For the pe-de-moleque

If you have roasted and peeled peanuts, skip the roasting instructions and proceed to make the caramel. If you have raw peanuts, heat them on the stove top for 5-6 minutes stirring frequently to prevent burning. Let the peanuts cool completely. Then take a few peanuts between your palms and rub them to remove the peel. Then you can scoop out the peanuts or use the technique in the video to separate the peels from the peanuts. 

Prepare a tray or plate by lining it with a baking silicone mat or parchment paper, so that the brittle does not stick to the tray.

To make the caramel, add the sugar to a sauce pan and half of the water. This will wet the sugar but won't create a syrup. Now turn on the heat and let the sugar cook, without stirring it at all. Be patient and watchful. It will eventually start boiling and at a certain point suddenly being caramelizing. Now, it will caramelize the sugar very quickly. Let it boil for a few seconds as soon as it caramelizes and you can start stirring. Remove from the heat as soon as you have the color you are looking for. It can burn very quickly after caramelizing. 

Now let the caramel cool down completely. If you add water to boiling hot caramel, you can get burns, so be safe. Once the caramel is cooled down, add the water and stir. Then heat up the caramel, stirring it so that any caramel lumps will dissolve.

You need to heat the caramel to about a hard ball stage which is about 270F. I used a candy thermometer to heat the syrup till it was boiling and starting to thicken at the soft ball stage of about 235F. Then, add the peanuts to the syrup and let the syrup boil. In a couple of minutes, it will start frothing. See the video. At this stage, you can pour it into the prepared pan.

Let it cool for 10-15 minutes and then you can break it into pieces. Store in a container after it cools down completely. 

Tips

Ensure that the cassava is dry and does not have dripping water before adding to the oil. Be safe when working with hot oil. Oil starts to shimmer when it is hot and you can test it by adding just one piece to the oil to see if it is at the right temperature. If you add it to cold oil, it will soak up more oil and the end result will be oily.

To roast the peanuts, you can use the microwave. Start at 2 minutes and stir and check and continue with lesser time intervals (1 min and then 30 secs) till the peanuts are roasted. Or you can use a regular oven and bake the peanuts at 350F for 5-10 minutes, checking periodically and shaking the baking container for even baking. 

If you add water to hot caramel, it will sizzle loudly, cause some spluttering and seize into lumps. So let the caramel cook completely.