Sauce Dah — Print Recipe — The Culinary Codex

A complex, nutty sauce made from roasted melon or squash seeds ground into a paste and simmered with smoked fish and leafy greens.

Ingredients

2 cups melon seeds (egusi or squash seeds)
300g smoked fish, deboned
2 cups fresh spinach, chopped
2 onions, chopped
3 tomatoes, chopped
3 tbsp palm oil
2 scotch bonnet peppers
1 bouillon cube
Salt to taste
500ml water

Instructions

1 Roast melon seeds in a dry pan until fragrant. Grind to a fine paste in a mortar or blender.
2 Heat palm oil and sauté onions until golden. Add chopped tomatoes and cook 10 minutes.
3 Add ground seed paste and stir well. Gradually add water, stirring to prevent lumps.
4 Simmer for 20 minutes, stirring regularly, until sauce is thick and oil rises.
5 Add smoked fish, scotch bonnet, and bouillon. Cook 10 minutes.
6 Add chopped spinach, stir, and cook 5 more minutes. Serve with foutou or placali.

Did You Know?

The art of properly roasting and grinding the seeds is the secret to a great sauce dah — under-roasted seeds produce a bland sauce, over-roasted ones taste bitter.