Mafé Guinean

Easy·30 min active + 1 hour resting

Guinean peanut stew — meat (chicken, beef, or lamb) and vegetables (sweet potato, carrot, cassava, cabbage) simmered in a rich, creamy peanut-butter-and-tomato sauce. Served over rice or fonio. The pan-Sahelian groundnut tradition.

Mafé (also called tigadeguena or maafé) is the universal Sahelian-West African peanut stew, with versions across Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, Guinea, and Burkina Faso.

Spoon up Guinean mafé — golden-brown creamy stew, chunks of meat, sweet potato, carrot. Bite: peanut richness, tomato brightness, meat tenderness, vegetable sweetness. With fonio underneath (the Guinean highland grain), this is the Fouta Djallon family meal.

Mixing peanut butter with warm water prevents lumps. Long simmer mellows peanut and integrates flavors. Adding vegetables later preserves their texture.

Variations

Mafé with chicken (faster). With fish. Vegetarian mafé. Each West African country has variations.

On the Palate

Where Mafé Guinean sits in the Guinean flavor cloud

Cook to learn

Loosen the peanut butter with warm water before it hits the pot, then simmer long and slow — a smooth slurry stops it seizing into lumps, and the long cook mellows the raw peanut into a silky, savory stew.

Techniques

Simmering Braising

Ingredients

Serves 6

3 + 3 tbsp pasteTomato

How it's made

11 steps · 30 min active + 1 hour waiting

1
4 min
Cube 800 g beef (or lamb) into 4-cm pieces.
2
9 min
Brown in 3 tbsp oil 8 min.
3
7 min
Add 2 chopped onions + 6 minced garlic + 1 tbsp ginger; cook 6 min.
4
6 min
Add 3 chopped tomatoes + 3 tbsp tomato paste + 1-2 chopped scotch bonnets; cook 5 min.
5
3 min
Mix 250 g peanut butter with 200 ml warm water; add.
6
2 min
Add 1 L stock + 2 bouillon cubes + 1 tsp salt + 1 tsp thyme + 1 bay leaf.
7
32 min
Simmer 30 min.
Watch out
During this first simmer the sauce thickens and the oil rises — skim a little if it pools, and stir now and then so the peanut doesn't catch on the bottom.
8
5 min
Add 400 g cubed sweet potato + 200 g chopped carrot + 200 g chopped cabbage.
9
28 min
Simmer 25-30 min until vegetables tender and meat fall-apart.
Watch out
It's done when a fork slides into the sweet potato easily and the meat pulls apart on its own — the sauce should coat the spoon, not run thin.
10
2 min
Stir in 2 tbsp chopped cilantro + 1 tbsp lime juice.
11
3 min
Serve over rice or fonio.