Senegal -Slow Cooker Yassa Yapp
Yassa can get really fancy in Dakar and the other cities, and with wealthy families. Village style is just the onions and the meat -you would get major points for sliced bell peppers, cucumbers, eggs, french fries, whatever extras you can put on top.
Yassa -the very word makes me start to drool. Meals in Senegal consisted of millet for breakfast and dinner, with some sort of spicy/dried fish on top. Lunch was rice with some sort of sauce and fish. Now, while these dishes were tasty, yassa was a real treat. It only came out when we had a guest -it would cost about 2,000 CFA (about $3, a lot for someone in the village) to buy a chicken and away we'd go.
Yassa yapp -(yapp = meat) is even more rare -it is really only served at weddings, baptisms, etc. -the pinnacle of Senegalese social life. As some overworked woman tossed me morsels of meat across the plate it ignited a deep hunger that could only be filled by American size portions. So, here goes.
Side note: S does not eat onions. His mother is always posting My Stealthy Freedom links on my Facebook wall. Staying in Denver at my sister's place, cooking this dish felt like my stealthy freedom.
You can follow a recipe like this: http://www.senecuisine.com/recette-du-yassa-la-viande/, but in my experience, every woman had her own way of making it that was based on probably family inheritence or lots of detailed experimentation. Some women were respected and valued for their good recipes. So, play with it a bit. Here's my rough recipe:
Ingredients:
1) 2-5 tbs French/dijon mustard (depending on how much mustard taste you want)
2) a couple of shakes of red pepper flakes, more if you like it spicy
3) salt & pepper
4) some Magi or other type of weird seasoning (the most famous one in Senegal was Jumbo), photo of mine below
5) 3-5 onions, depending on how many you're cooking for and how much onions you want
6) any type of lamb, bone-in (the bone in part is important, I cooked lamb stew pieces in the crock pot and they were too dry and tough, the bone and fat gives it lots of flavor, and then there's always the 'falling off the bone' aspect)
Directions: (read from bottom up)
* Yassa yapp is served over rice so be sure to make that too!
5) Add everything together. Cook until meat is falling off the bone.
4. Brown the meat on all sides before putting in the pot. This is really important. It seals in the juices and keeps it from getting boiled in the pot, which would be gross.
3. Add the onions to the crock pot and mix with the other ingredients.
2) Slice the onions into half rings, heat some oil in a skillet and saute them until they are a little floppy/translucent. Add salt and pepper.
1) Put the mustard, red pepper flakes, and Magi seasoning in the crock pot.