Fish in banana leaves (liboké)
Chunks of river fish wrapped in banana leaves with palm oil and fiery pili-pili sauce, then grilled over glowing embers until the leaves char and the fish steams in its own juices. This leaf-parcel method is found across the Congo basin, where it is known as liboké or maboké.
Ingredients
Instructions
Combine all the pili-pili sauce ingredients in a bowl, adding ½ teaspoon of Angostura bitters if you like, and stir with a fork into a loose, slightly watery paste. Refrigerate while you prepare the rest.
If you are starting with whole fish, scale and clean it, remove the head, and cut away the central and side bones to get fillets. Cut the fish into strips about 1 inch wide and season lightly with salt.
Rinse the banana leaves and cut away any hard central rib. Pass them briefly over a flame or dip them in hot water until they become pliable and no longer split when folded. Prepare a charcoal grill with a good bed of glowing embers.
Overlap two leaves for each portion. Arrange a quarter of the fish strips on the leaves in a ring, leaving a hollow in the center. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the palm oil and about 1 tablespoon of the pili-pili sauce into the hollow. Fold the leaves over to enclose the fish and tie each bundle closed with twine.
Place the four bundles on the grill rack as close to the embers as you can and cook for 5 minutes on each side. Open one to check that the fish is opaque and flakes easily, and cook a few minutes longer if needed.
Serve the bundles hot, opened at the table the remaining pili-pili sauce. The banana leaves are not edible.
Notes
Banana leaves are sold frozen in Asian, Latin American, and African grocery stores. If you cannot find them, wrap each portion in a layer of parchment paper and then foil. It which will not give the same aroma.
Red palm oil is sold in African, Caribbean, and Brazilian grocery stores. Vegetable oil works if you cannot find it.
The bundles can also be baked in a 400°F oven for about 20 to 25 minutes if you do not have a grill.
The fish is usually served with fufu or kwanga. Fufu is a soft dough made from cassava flour, and kwanga (called chikwangue in French) is a loaf of fermented cassava paste cooked in leaves. Both soak up the sauce well.
Variations
Many versions add aromatics to the bundle, such as sliced onion, tomato, garlic, grated ginger, and a squeeze of lemon.
In Cameroon, the dish is called ndomba and is made with leek, celery, and basil, often with chicken or pork instead of fish.
Okra or cassava leaves are sometimes added in the Congo basin.
Ground pumpkin seeds are another traditional filling for leaf-steamed dishes there, known as liboké ya mbika.
For an Equatorial Guinean-style version, mix about 3 1/2 oz of grated modika (also sold as dika, odika, or ogbono) with the palm oil and pili-pili sauce into a thick paste, and spread it over the fish before wrapping. The modika adds a nutty, toasted flavor and thickens the juices inside the bundle.
Source
Cooking food in leaf parcels over embers is a technique found across the Congo basin. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo it is known as liboké, in Gabon and the Central African Republic as maboké, and in Cameroon as ndomba, where it is a festive dish often prepared at Christmas.
Fish from the Congo River is the classic filling, though meat and chicken are also wrapped this way, and the dish is commonly served with fufu, kwanga, plantains, or rice.