Gambian-Senegalese peanut stew with lamb, sweet potato, cassava — sweeter and thicker than mafé, less tomato-driven.
Mandinka of the Gambia River basin. The name «domoda» is Mandinka for stew-with-sauce; it crossed the border into Casamance with shared ethnicity. Recipe codified in Gambian cookbook «Mama Africa» (1995) by Bisi Iderabdullah.
President Sir Dawda Jawara (Gambia 1970-94) named domoda the national dish in his 1991 independence speech. Aliou Diankha of Restaurant Keur N'Deye in Dakar uses a 70/30 peanut-tomato ratio versus mafé's 50/50.
Mahogany-thick sauce — denser than mafé, almost spoon-stand. The sweet potato breaks down and sweetens the peanut, the lamb pulls apart. Eat with rice or fufu; the sauce coats more than mafé would.
Lamb browns first then simmers 45 min before peanut paste enters; sweet potato (not pumpkin like some say) goes in last 20 min and partially breaks down to thicken. The Gambian giveaway: less tomato than Senegalese mafé, more aubergine.
Variations
Gambian domoda (lamb, sweet potato), Senegalese-Casamance domoda (sometimes chicken, palm oil), Sierra Leonean groundnut stew which adds bitter leaf, and the Wolof crossover that adds nététou.
On the Palate
Where Domoda sits in the Senegalese flavor cloud
Brown the lamb hard and simmer it 45 minutes before the peanut paste goes in — the paste can't tenderize meat, and if it enters early it scorches on the pan bottom.
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
4 steps · 13 min active + 1 hour waiting
- 110 min
Brown 500 g lamb in oil 10 min.
Watch outWait until the lamb releases from the pan on its own and shows a deep brown crust before turning — that fond is the base of the stew.
- 215 min
Add 300 g peanut butter + 1 L water; simmer 15 min.
- 345 min
Add cubed sweet potato + cassava + onion; simmer 45 min.
Watch outThe stew is ready when the sweet potato edges start dissolving and the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
- 43 min
Adjust salt and chili; serve over rice.
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