Benin: Dahomey Fish Stew and Yovo Doko

This was a special meal to cook because I got to do it with long lost family! I’d been living in Denver for over 2 years when I found out that one of my mom’s cousins lives nearby! We were finally able to get together to cook this meal and it was SO fun to catch up! Being so far from my immediate family, it’s really nice knowing that I do still have family close by. :) For this meal I chose to make Dahomey fish stew and yovo doko for dessert.

Benin is a small country on the western coast of Africa, between Togo and Nigeria. Originally called the Dahomey Kingdom, Benin is said to be the birthplace of voodoo and many of it’s coastal cities were a huge part of the transatlantic slave trade.

The fish stew was really simple but surprisingly good! It is essentially tomato and onion stew topped with breaded fried fish. You can use any mild white fish for the recipe, but I thought that what really gave it a great flavor was the red palm oil that everything was cooked in. This is the second time on this journey that I’ve made a dish with red palm oil, so I want to take this time to remind everyone to choose a sustainable brand of red palm oil if you’re going to cook with it. Widespread production and use has led to huge parts of Africa becoming deforested, destroying many animal’s habitats.

Yovo Doko is a sweet “fritter” fried in peanut oil and is commonly found in street stalls. These were so good and are actually super similar to beignets. They also reminded me of the luqaimat that I made for Bahrain. The recipe I used made plenty to share, so I was able to give some to our neighbor and some friends!