Moambé Sauce / Nyembwe Sauce

Palm nuts, the fruit of the African oil palm, are available only in the tropics. Moambé (or Mwambe) or Nyembwe Sauce (also called Palm Butter) is made by boiling the palm nuts fruits and discarding the skin and nut kernels; the remaining oily reddish pulp is the moambé or nyembwe sauce (or palm butter, as it is known in English). Straining out the pulp leaves Africa's famous red palm oil. Western Africa has many Palm Butter Soup recipes. Since fresh palm nuts are not available outside the tropics, canned palm soup base, also called sauce graine or noix de palme may be substituted for homemade.

palm nuts, fruit of african oil palm tree

What you need

approximately one hundred fresh, ripe, palm nuts

What you do

Bring two or three cups of water to a boil in a saucepan. Place the palm nuts in the boiling water (they do not need to be covered by the water). Cover and cook the palm nuts for a few minutes, until the skins begin to come off.

Drain the water from the pan. Use a potato masher (or a mortar and pestle) to crush the palm nuts into a pulp.

Combine the palm nut pulp with one to two quarts (approximately one to two liters) of cold water. Stir. Squeeze the palm nuts with your hands to remove all the fruit and oil from the palm nuts.

Press the pulp through a strainer into the saucepan (rinse it first). Discard the nut skins and kernels that remain in the strainer. You might want to strain it twice, to remove all the nut kernels and bits of skin, and to make sure all the oil and fruit end up in the saucepan. Heat the pulp to a low boil, stir often, and cook until the sauce is thickened (maybe an hour). Once the sauce is heated, chicken or meat, and other ingredients can be added and cooked in the thickening sauce to make Poulet Moambé or Poulet Nyembwe or Moambé Stew.

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Congo Cookbook recipes using Palm Nuts

Also see: Recipes by Ingredient

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African Proverb

Abe berre-a, woso fa miso fa. (Oji) : When the palm-nuts are ripe, you carry half, I carry half. N.B. -- Each of us must take an equal share of the trouble as well as the produce.
(from: Wit and Wisdom from West Africa, Richard Francis Burton)

Other African proverbs

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