HuldaKondre is a popular Cameroonian stew, it is spicy and delicious. This is a traditional dish from the western part of Cameroon (also called Bamileke). It is mostly cooked for traditional weddings, funerals, and other celebrations.
How is Kondre cooked?
This stew is easy to prepare but takes a long time to cook (at least 2 hours), depending on the nature of the plantain. The cooking time is long because the plantain needs to be deeply cooked to become soft.
Kondre is made of five main ingredients: plantains, meat (beef, pork, goat, or lamb), spices, water, and oil.
Plantain
The plantain is the first main ingredient of Kondre, without it you can’t cook this meal. You must use unripe plantains.
Meat
You can choose either beef, pork, goat, or lamb meat according to your taste. If you use beef meat for your recipe, then you need to cook it together with the plantain. If not, you need to add it halfway through the cooking process. The reason is that pork, goat, or lamb don’t need longer time to cook compared to beef.
Spices
A particularity of this meal is that it is very spicy. The main spices are Djansang, black pepper, Pebe, and Rondelles.
Water
You also need enough water for cooking. The water level in the pot should be over the plantain.
Oil
This meal is traditionally cooked with palm oil only, but you can also cook it with vegetable oil or a mixture of both. For this recipe, I used palm and vegetable oil.
Check these out for more Plantain recipes:
Kondre from Cameroon
Ingredients
- 9 green plantains
- 1.5 kg beef meat
- 2 fresh tomatoes
- 1 leek
- 2 onions
- 30 g ginger
- 6 garlic gloves
- 25 Djansang seeds
- 2 Pebe
- 4 Rondelles
- 1 handful of parsley
- fresh basil leaves
- 1 tsp white pepper
- 1 tsp black pepper
- 1 tsp dry thyme
- 4 dry Odjom leaves
- salt to taste
- oil
- water
Instructions
- Peel the plantains, wash them, cut them in half and put aside
- Blend the tomatoes with onions, Djansang, Rondelles, Pebe, white pepper, garlic, ginger, leek, basil and water. Put the blend aside. for later.
- Pour vegetable oil into a large pot, add chopped onion, meat, then mix. Let simmer for a few minutes under medium heat.
- Add the salt, black pepper and mix.
- Add the spice blend and mix, then add the plantains.
- Add enough water to cover the plantain and mix.
- Cook for at least 2 hours while checking the water level regularly to prevent burn.
- When the plantain is soft and tender, add the Odjom leaves, thyme, and a small amount of palm oil. Adjust salt if necessary. Let it cook for another 15 minutes. The meal should be ready to be served. Enjoy!
