Thieboudienne (Ceebu Jën)

Name: Thieboudienne (Ceebu Jën)
Total time: 2 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Senegalese
Ingredients: 1 kg Firm white fish steaks, on the bone; 600 g Broken rice; 1 large bunch Parsley; 6 cloves Garlic; 1 Scotch bonnet or habanero chilli; 3 Onions, sliced; 3 tbsp Tomato paste; 1/2 Cabbage, in wedges; 2 Carrots, in large pieces; 300 g Cassava, peeled and chunked; 1 Aubergine; 30 g Dried fish or fermented fish (guedj), optional; 120 ml Neutral oil; 2 tsp Salt; 1.5 L Water; 1 Lime

Senegal's national dish and the meal the whole country eats from one platter: fish stuffed with herb paste, simmered with vegetables, then rice cooked in that same red broth until every grain is stained and savoury.

Fonte

Receita de Senegalese home kitchens · 🏺 Tradicional · Everyday Senegalese cooking — the one-pot rice-and-fish table of Dakar and the coast, built on onions, lemon, chilli and groundnuts.

Senegalese · national dish — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms ceebu jën / thieboudienne as a traditional Senegalese dish of fish, broken rice and vegetables, widely regarded as the national dish and inscribed by UNESCO in 2021. Quantities and method here are this book's own.

Contexto na Wikipédia ↗

Veja como se faz · 3 vídeos

Nanaaba's Kitchen Lovystouch Food Channel TastyHandsKitchen

⏱ 120 min🍽 6 porções🔥 610 kcal🇸🇳 Senegal🌶️🌶️

HalalSem lactoseSem oleaginosas

Modo de preparo

Make the rof: pound or blend the parsley, 3 garlic cloves, a pinch of salt and a little chilli into a coarse green paste.
Cut a deep slit in each fish steak and push the paste inside. Rub the outside with salt and set aside for 15 minutes.
💡 Stuffing, not sprinkling. The herb paste has to be inside the fish to season it from within during the simmer.
Heat the oil in a wide heavy pot and fry the fish briefly on both sides — just to set the surface, not to cook it through. Lift it out.
In the same oil, cook the onions until soft and golden, then add the remaining garlic and the tomato paste and fry it for 3–4 minutes until it darkens and loses its raw edge.
💡 Frying the tomato paste properly is what turns the broth deep red-brown instead of thin and sour. Do not skip the four minutes.
Pour in the water, add the dried fish if using, the whole chilli and the salt, and bring to a simmer. Add the hard vegetables — cassava and carrot — and cook 15 minutes, then the cabbage and aubergine for 10 more.
Slide the fish back in and poach it gently for 10 minutes. Lift out the fish and all the vegetables and keep them warm — the broth is what you need next.
Measure the broth: you want about 1.2 L for this much rice. Rinse the broken rice, tip it into the broth, and cook covered on low for 20–25 minutes until the grains are tender and the liquid is gone.
Pile the rice on a big platter, lay the fish and vegetables on top, and squeeze lime over. One dish, in the middle, everyone eating from their own wedge of it.

💡 Dicas

Ceebu jën means simply 'rice and fish' in Wolof. There are two families — ceebu jën bu weex (white, no tomato) and bu xonq (red, with tomato). This is the red one.
The prized part is xoon — the crisp layer of rice stuck to the bottom of the pot. Scrape it up and share it; it is not a mistake.
Ceebu jën was inscribed on UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage list in 2021 — a rare honour for a single national dish.