Koba recipe

A dense banana and peanut cake wrapped in banana leaves and steamed for hours until it slices like a firm pudding.

3 hours and 20 minutesmedium6 ingredients

Ingredients

• 6 ripe bananas
• 150 g roasted peanuts
• 150 g rice flour
• 100 g brown sugar
• 4 banana leaves
• 1 pinch salt

How to make Koba

1. Take 6 very ripe bananas, the ones with black spots, and mash them to a puree with a fork. Ripeness is the sweetness, do not compensate with extra sugar.
2. Coarsely crush 150 g of roasted peanuts. Leave visible pieces, this is not a paste and not peanut butter.
3. Work in 150 g of rice flour, 100 g of brown sugar and a pinch of salt until you have a thick paste that holds its shape on a spoon.
4. Pass 4 banana leaves briefly over a flame or dip them in boiling water so they go supple, then wipe them dry.
5. Spread the paste in a 3 cm thick rectangle on the leaves, fold into a tight parcel and tie it with strips of leaf or kitchen string.
6. Steam the parcels over gently boiling water. Count 2 hours minimum for a home-sized parcel, and know that the koba sold on Madagascan roadsides is cooked as a large log for 8 to 12 hours, which no domestic pot reproduces.
7. Check by pressing the parcel, it should feel firm through the leaf with no give.
8. Let it cool completely in its leaf before unwrapping, then cut in thick slices.
9. It keeps several days at room temperature, still wrapped.

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