Ravitoto
One of Madagascar's most iconic dishes, pounded cassava leaves cooked with fatty pork, with roots tracing to the Austronesian settlers who brought cassava-leaf cookery to the island and a documented place in Merina royal festival cuisine as one of seven ceremonial dishes. Genuinely distinct from the site's Rwandan isombe, another cassava-leaf dish but from a separate Congolese-origin lineage: ravitoto's leaves are pounded or ground into a fine paste rather than chopped and boiled, its signature fat comes from very fatty pork rather than peanut butter, and coastal Malagasy versions add coconut milk, a step highland Merina versions skip.
Meat
⚠ Contains: Shellfish. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 500g fresh pounded cassava leaves (or frozen ground cassava leaves)
- 600g fatty pork shoulder or belly, cubed
- 4 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 tbsp grated ginger
- 1 onion, chopped
- Dried shrimp (optional)
- 200ml coconut milk (optional, coastal style)
- Salt
Steps
- If using fresh leaves, pound to a fine paste (a food processor works as a modern substitute).
- Brown the pork pieces, then add the garlic, ginger, and onion.
- Stir in the pounded cassava leaves with a little water.
- Simmer 45-60 minutes until the pork is tender and the leaves have cooked down to a soft, dark green paste.
- For the coastal style, stir in coconut milk in the last 10 minutes.