COPPERWhat is the national dish of The Gambia?
The national dish of The Gambia is domoda, a stew of meat or fish simmered in a sauce of ground peanut paste and tomato, sharpened with lemon juice and served over white rice. No law makes it official, but Gambian food references, including Abdoulaye Saine's Culture and Customs of Gambia, name it the national dish.
What is domoda?
Domoda is a groundnut stew. Its name comes from Mandinka, domo dàa, which means "eat pot". The sauce is built on concentrated peanut paste with onion, fresh tomatoes and tomato paste, cooked with meat or fish and vegetables such as potatoes, carrots, cabbage, sweet potato or pumpkin, then finished with lemon juice.
Because meat is expensive, domoda is also commonly made without it, with pumpkin or sweet potato doing the work. When meat is used, beef and chicken are the usual choices. Either way, it goes over plain white rice.
How domoda is made
Our domoda recipe starts by browning four chicken thighs, then frying onion, tomatoes and 60 g of tomato paste until the paste darkens and loses its raw taste. That step gives domoda its colour.
250 g of unsweetened peanut butter is whisked smooth with hot water and stirred in with more water. The chicken goes back with a whole Scotch bonnet and simmers uncovered for 30 minutes. Stir often: peanut catches on the bottom of the pot. Sweet potato follows for 20 minutes, until the oil rises to the surface and the sauce coats a spoon.
The lemon juice goes in five minutes before the end. That sour edge against the peanut is what makes it domoda rather than a generic peanut stew.
Domoda, domoda faring and maafe
The same name covers different stews on either side of the border, which explains much of the confusion online:
- Domoda (The Gambia): the peanut-paste stew with lemon described above, the national dish.
- Domoda faring: a Gambian variation thickened with flour instead of peanut butter, a lemony tomato stew with chicken, lamb, beef or fishballs.
- Domoda (Senegal): in Senegal the word refers to the flour-thickened stew, not the peanut one.
- Maafe: the name used in Senegal for the peanut-paste stew, served with white rice there as in The Gambia.
Benachin and yassa, the other two pillars
Benachin takes its name from the Wolof benna cin, "one pot". It is a version of the Senegalese thieboudienne: fish or meat and whole vegetables are stewed in a tomato base, lifted out, and the rice is cooked in the same sauce, then served under them. Our recipe uses broken rice, cassava, bitter tomato, cabbage and okra. In The Gambia it can be served with rangha bissap, a sauce of hibiscus leaves boiled and pounded to a fine paste.
Yassa is chicken or fish with lemon, mustard and a mountain of onions. Our recipe slices 1 kg of onions for one chicken, marinates it overnight, chars the pieces on the grill, then simmers them under the slow-cooked onions, which become the sauce.
Other dishes to know from The Gambia
Gambian cooking comes mainly from the Mandinka, Wolof, Serer and Jola peoples and is close to that of Senegal; see the national dish of Senegal. Common ingredients include fish, rice, peanuts, tomato, black-eyed peas, lemon, cassava and bitter tomato.
All three Copper dishes are on our page about the food of The Gambia, and the wider region in our guide to West African food. Other dishes worth knowing:
- Supakanja: okra stew with palm oil, smoked fish and beef.
- Mbahal (nyankatang in Mandinka): smoked and salted fish cooked with groundnuts, locust bean or black-eyed beans, chillies and bitter tomato, over rice.
- Attaya: sweet green tea brewed three times on a charcoal pot.
- Wonjo: a sweet drink of steeped roselle with sugar and mint, served cold.
The recipes
- Domoda🇬🇲 Gambia · 1 hour and 20 minutes
Benachin🇬🇲 Gambia · 1 hour and 35 minutes
Yassa🇬🇲 Gambia · 13 hours and 40 minutes
Questions people ask
Is domoda from The Gambia or Senegal?
Its name is Mandinka and the peanut version is The Gambia's national dish. In Senegal, "domoda" usually means a flour-thickened tomato stew, while the peanut stew is called maafe.
What does domoda mean?
It comes from the Mandinka domo dàa, "eat pot".
What is served with domoda?
Plain white rice, with the sauce poured over it.
Is domoda vegetarian?
It can be. Because meat is expensive, domoda is often made with pumpkin or sweet potato only; beef or chicken are added when available.
What is benachin?
Benachin, Wolof for "one pot", is the Gambian rice dish in which meat or fish and vegetables are stewed in tomato sauce and the rice is then cooked in that same sauce.
Keep reading
- Traditional food of The Gambia: 13 dishes to know
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- What is the national dish of Burkina Faso?
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- What is the national dish of Côte d'Ivoire?
- What is the national dish of Ghana?