Wild Boar in Groundnut Sauce

In Africa, the term bushmeat is applied to any game caught in the wild. Wild boar (or wild pig) is a popular bushmeat in Africa (except among Muslims). If you don't have any wild boar on hand, substitute any other game or pork.

What you need

two or three pounds of wild boar or pork (any part); cut into bite-sized or serving-sized pieces
salt (to taste)
black pepper (to taste)
a few onions, chopped
a few tomatoes, peeled and chopped
one cup peanut butter (natural or homemade), or similar amount of fresh or roasted peanuts
oil for frying

What you do

If using peanuts instead of peanut butter:
Roast the peanuts in a baking pan in a hot oven, or on the stove in a large skillet, turning often. Remove the skins from the peanuts and mash them with a mortar and pestle, mince them with a knife, crush them with a rolling pin, or use a chop them fine in a food-processor.
Heat a few spoonfulls of oil in a large pot. Add the meat and fry it until it is browned but not done. Reduce heat. Add water, salt, and pepper and simmer for about half an hour.
Add the tomatoes and onions and contine to simmer until the meat is done and becoming tender.
Remove some of the liquid and mix it with the peanut butter to make a smooth sauce. Add this to the meat-tomato-onion mixture.
Continue to simmer on a very low heat until the meat is very tender.
Serve with fried or boiled Plantains, or Baton de Manioc (a.k.a. Chikwangue), Fufu, or Rice.

There are many peanut recipes in Sub-Saharan Africa; see Peanuts in Africa.

Ben Okri

The aroma of the marvellous cooking overpowered the room

Wild Boar and other Nigerian dishes are served at a celebration described in Ben Okri's The Famished Road (New York: Doubleday, 1992).

Then the women began the cooking of the wild animal [a boar] that Dad had caught in the forest.
When the meat was cooking, on another fire a great pan was sizzling with oil. The whole compound smelt of aromatic stew, peppers, onions, wild earthy herbs, and frying bushmeat.
. . .
Then to our delight a woman appeared at the door, sounding a heraldic song. Mum came in with three women, carrying a great steaming pot of stew. Behind her were three more women, bearing basins of jollof rice, yams, beans, eba, and fried plantains. Children brought in paper plates and plastic cutlery. The aroma of the marvellous cooking overpowered the room. (Section One, Book One, Chapter Ten)

Other African gastronomical excerpts

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Congo Cookbook recipes using Peanut Butter

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African Proverb

Ogan imado ko se iko li oju. (Yoruba) : The great wild boar is not easy to encounter. N.B. -- Said to one who undertakes an impossibility.
(from: Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton)

Other African proverbs

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