Kondre
A one-pot plantain and meat stew genuinely rooted with the Bamileke people of Cameroon's West Region, particularly around Bafang, sometimes called a national dish today but with a real, specific ethnic-regional home worth naming precisely, and known under real spelling variants including kondreh and nkondrè referring to the same dish. Real kondre simmers unripe or semi-ripe plantain with beef in a spiced tomato, onion, garlic, and ginger base enriched with palm oil, often flavored with njansa, a ground seed sometimes called African walnut, worth flagging as a tree-nut-adjacent allergen caution even though it's botanically a seed rather than a true nut.
⚠ Contains: Tree Nut. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 6 unripe or semi-ripe plantains, chunked
- 600g beef, cubed
- 1 onion, chopped
- 3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp ginger, minced
- 2 tomatoes, chopped
- 1/4 cup palm oil
- 2 tbsp njansa (ground, optional)
- 1 scotch bonnet chile, minced
Steps
- Brown the beef with onion, garlic, and ginger in the palm oil.
- Add the tomatoes and cook down into a thick base.
- Cover with water and simmer until the beef is nearly tender, about 1 hour.
- Add the plantain chunks, njansa if using, and chile, and continue simmering until the plantain is tender.
- Serve hot as a one-pot meal.