The Hirshon Sierra Leone Spicy Fish Balls – Huntu

My glorious and eternally-beloved Citizens of TFD Nation! I write my latest communiqué in a preternaturally excitable state – I recently had a meeting with the team of a very famous actor of Sierra-Leonean extraction whom I have the most profound respect for! I have been looking forward to meeting them for some time, and as I pondered with the enormity of profound thought, it occurred to me with equal horror that I have yet to include a recipe from this proud country – a situation which I will address with alacrity to resolve. As such, I now share My recipe for huntu – steamed, spiced fish balls enjoyed throughout Sierra Leone!

By way of background for those unfamiliar with this African country of profound beauty: Sierra Leone, officially the Republic of Sierra Leone, is a country on the southwest coast of West Africa. It shares its southeastern border with Liberia and is bordered by Guinea to the north. With a land area of 27,699 sq mi, Sierra Leone has a tropical climate and possesses a variety of environments ranging from savannas to rainforests. According to the 2015 census, Sierra Leone has a population of 7,092,113, with Freetown serving as both the capital and largest city.

Archaeological findings show that Sierra Leone has been inhabited for thousands of years. Traditional historiography has customarily presented it as peopled by successive waves of invaders, but the language pattern suggests that the coastal Bulom (Sherbro), Temne, and Limba have been in continuous settled occupation for a long time, with subsequent sporadic immigration from inland by Mande-speaking peoples, including Vai, Loko, and Mende.

They organized themselves in small political units—independent kingdoms or chiefdoms—whose rulers’ powers were checked by councils. Secret societies, notably the Poro society, also exercised political power, as well as instructing initiates in the customs of the country. Muslim traders brought Islam, which became firmly established in the north and subsequently spread through the rest of the country.

Portuguese voyagers gave the name Serra Lyoa (“Lion Mountains”), later corrupted to Sierra Leone, to the mountainous peninsula at the mouth of the Rokel (Seli) River where, from the 15th century onward, European traders congregated near the site of present-day Freetown under the protection of African rulers, who welcomed them for the commercial opportunities they provided—namely, the exchange of imported manufactured goods for ivory and slaves to be employed across the Atlantic.

A group of freed slaves arrived in Sierra Leone from England in 1787 to form a settlement. It failed but was revived by the Sierra Leone Company, a commercial company sponsored by English opponents of the slave trade. Black settlers who had liberated themselves from American slavery were brought over from Nova Scotia and built a new settlement, named Freetown. In 1800 “Maroons,” free blacks from Jamaica, were also brought in. These settlers were English-speaking, and many were literate and Christian.

After the British Parliament made the slave trade illegal in 1807, the British government took over the settlement (January 1, 1808) as a naval base against the slave trade and as a centre to which slaves, captured in transit across the Atlantic, could be brought and freed. Between 1807 and 1864, when the last slave ship case was adjudicated in the Freetown courts, the British navy brought in more than 50,000 “recaptives,” also known as “liberated Africans.”

Drawn from all over western Africa, these heterogeneous people lacked any common language or culture. The government therefore introduced a deliberate policy of turning them into a homogeneous Christian community. Protestant missionaries, along with the black pastors of Freetown churches, worked with such success that within a generation the policy was virtually fulfilled. The (Anglican) Church Missionary Society founded an institution to train teachers and missionaries, Fourah Bay College, which was affiliated to the University of Durham in England in 1876.

The recaptives and their children, known as Creoles (today usually rendered Krios), prospered as traders, and some entered the professions, qualifying in Britain as doctors and lawyers. Thus, they formed an educated West African elite. Notable examples include James Africanus Beale Horton, who qualified as a doctor and served as an officer in the British army and published books on medical and political subjects, and Sir Samuel Lewis, a distinguished barrister.

During the 19th century the area around the coastal settlements was drawn increasingly into the British economic sphere. There was a market in Britain for shipbuilding timber, and most of the accessible forest trees in the coastal country were felled, altering the environment irrevocably. There was also a European market for vegetable oils, and unprocessed palm produce and peanuts were supplied in return for imported manufactures. Rulers fought for control of the trading centres and built up larger territories for themselves.

The colonial government made treaties of friendship with neighboring rulers and gradually acquired jurisdiction over the coastline. At the period of the European partition of Africa, frontiers were delimited with the neighboring French and Liberian governments, and a British protectorate was proclaimed in 1896 over the area within the frontier lines, though the original colony retained its status. To raise revenue to pay for administration of the protectorate, a hut tax was imposed.

The ruling chiefs, who had not been consulted about the protectorate, objected, and a revolt broke out in 1898 under Bai Bureh. It was suppressed by the end of the year. There were no further large-scale armed risings against the British. In the protectorate the chiefs ruled under the supervision of British district commissioners. Innovation was discouraged, and little was done to extend education.

In the colony many Creoles had held senior official posts in the 19th century and looked forward to governing themselves ultimately. After the protectorate was assumed, however, they were gradually removed from office, and the colony and protectorate were governed by British administrators.

After World War II the British government gave in to nationalist demands in Sierra Leone, as elsewhere in West Africa. Democratic institutions were hurriedly constituted. The small Creole minority hoped to entrench their rights politically, but the 1951 constitution gave control to the majority. The government elected under it was led by Milton (later Sir Milton) Margai of the Sierra Leone People’s Party (SLPP), a predominantly protectorate party.

During the 1950s, parliamentary institutions on the British pattern were introduced in stages. The last stage was reached on April 27, 1961, when Sierra Leone became an independent state within the Commonwealth. After several decades of civil war, Sierra Leone today is a peaceful democracy.

As noted on The Peace Corps wesite:

In Sierra Leone, the staple food is rice. “If I haven’t had my rice, I haven’t eaten today,” is a popular saying. Sierra Leoneans eat rice at least twice a day. Only women and girls prepare the food. They usually cook in big pots on a three-stone stove (three big rocks that support the pots). Firewood or charcoal is the main fuel, except among some city dwellers, who use gas or electricity.

If you visit a Sierra Leonean friend, he or she will almost always invite you to stay and eat. Usually the men and boys eat separately from the women and girls. Everyone washes their hands before they eat, and then they gather around in a circle with a huge dish of food placed in the middle. Sharing is an important part of life in Sierra Leone, and each person eats from the part of the big dish that is right in front of him or her. It is very bad manners to reach across the dish! Only the right hand is used for eating; the left hand is considered unclean.

When you are eating, you usually don’t talk. Talking shows a lack of respect for the food. It is rude to lean on your left hand while you are eating. People usually drink water only after a meal is over.

The oldest males get the choicest food, the best pieces of meat or fish. Then the young males take the next best pieces, and then finally the women and girls get any meat or fish that is left. Sometimes the women and girls wait until the men and boys have had all they want before they eat.

Rice is eaten with the hands by squeezing or rolling it into a ball, dipping it into the sauce, and then popping it into the mouth. If rice falls from your fingers or mouth, you don’t put it back in the dish. When everyone finishes eating, they wash their hands and thank the cook.

Many ingredients go into sauces or stews to go with rice. The most popular sauces are made of greens, especially cassava or potato leaves. Other common ingredients include palm oil, onions, tomatoes, yams, and red peppers. Sometimes groundnut (peanut) oil or coconut oil are used. Other sources of protein that go into the sauces include groundnuts and beans, as well as fish, chicken, goat meat, or pork. Seafood, such as oysters, lobster, and crab, may also be used. Most of the calories, however, come from rice, which is eaten in large quantities.

Fruits in Sierra Leone include oranges, bananas, pawpaws (papayas), lemons, avocados, guava, watermelons, mangoes, and pineapples. Fruit is usually eaten as a snack. Plantains are often sliced and fried as chips for a snack. Tea and coffee are drunk in some parts of the country for breakfast. Cokes and beer are popular with many people who can afford them. 

As further exemplified by National Georgraphic:

Over the centuries, Sierra Leone has been a place of refuge. The Limba peoples were drawn by whispers of a land untouched by turmoil in Africa’s Sahelian kingdoms, and other tribes set out for there too, including the Mende, Loko, Susu, Fula, Temne and Sherbro. It was a place that embraced diversity, setting the stage for a journey of culinary exploration and growth that’s shaped the food history of Sierra Leone — or ‘Salone’ as many of its people call it.

The fusion of cultures is palpable in the country’s marketplaces, where vendors from different backgrounds stand shoulder to shoulder. These places are a sensory symphony. Amid the hubbub — people chatting, purchasing, telling stories — the air is thick with the smoke of roast cassava, the sizzle of fried foods that locals call fry fry, and the aroma of spiced kankankan beef and marinaded pepe chicken on grills. You catch the fragrance of seasonings and the sweet undertones of tropical fruit.

I grew up in Freetown, the capital, where such markets were common. The city has a unique history, culture and cuisine, owing to international trade, and the arrival of Muslim merchants, European colonisers and returning slaves from the likes of Nova Scotia and Jamaica. It’s — dare I say it — the home of Afro-fusion cooking. European influences are seen in doughnuts and tapalapa (a baguette-like bread); Lebanese traders introduced kibbeh (balls of bulgur wheat and meat); returning slaves brought cassava bread.

But Sierra Leone offers more than that. In this coastal nation, seafood is widely available, and our diet is very influenced by it: from fishball stew to huntu (steamed fishballs) and pepe snapper. We have some of the world’s most beautiful beaches, too. At Lumley, for example, on the edge of the capital, the aromas of lobster and crab mingle with the salty ocean breeze.

Sierra Leonean cuisine follows the traditions of other West African cuisines. The country has 16 tribal ethnic groups, and the most commonly eaten food in Sierra Leone is rice, which is typically served as part of every meal eaten. It is considered so ubiquitous that many Sierra Leoneans consider that a meal is not complete without it. Another popular staple food is cassava, which is pounded to make fufu; the leaves of the cassava are formed into a green stew.

Palm oil and peanuts are also widely eaten, and while yams are found in Sierra Leone, they are not a mainstay of the diet as they are in other parts of West Africa. Other staples in the Sierra Leonean diet are bananas, cinnamon, coconut, ginger, okra, plantains and tamarind. Commonly eaten meats include goat, chicken and beef, and there are also a number of dishes using pork as an added ingredient. Oranges, bananas, papayas, lemons, avocados, guava, watermelons, mangoes, and pineapples are fruits commonly eaten by Sierra Leoneans.

Huntu are a traditional dish of steamed fish balls that are commonly sold on the streets of Freetown by Fula women. Fula people are one of the largest ethnic groups in West Africa and are widely dispersed throughout the region. They are predominantly followers of Islam and have traditionally been nomadic, trading and herding cattle, goats and sheep. You can use haddock or cod or other white fish of your choice.

I found an exceptionally elevated recipe for Huntu on olivemagazine.com and have modified it to My personal standards with all the seasoning wizardry exemplified by the Suzerain of Spice Himself! Most of the ingredients are straightforward to find – you can purchase grains of Selim from here, the classic “Jumbo” brand stock cube (so vital in so many African dishes!) from here, top-quality Aleppo pepper flakes from here and Pequin chili flakes from here.

Citizens, huntu are an easy and spice-laden treat for your next meal, and one that is as beautiful to the eye as it is savory to the palate – I hope you find huntu worthy of serving to your next dinner guests, with the greatest of alacrity!

Battle on – the Generalissimo

The Hirshon Sierra Leone Fried Crispy Fish Balls – Huntu

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• Author: The Generalissimo

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Ingredients

Units USM Scale 1x2x3x

• 1 lb. white fish fillets, chopped
• 1 Tbsp. minced cilantro (optional TFD addition, omit for original)
• 1 1/2 tsp. finely-chopped ginger
• 1 1/2 tsp. finely-chopped garlic
• 1/2 tsp. freshly-ground green cardamom (optional TFD addition, omit for original)
• 3/4 tsp. Grains of Selim (optional TFD addition, omit for original)
• 1/4 tsp. Mace (optional TFD addition, omit for original)
• 1 medium onion, roughly chopped
• 1/4 tsp. scotch bonnet chili, chopped
• 1 1/2 oz. semolina
• 2 Tbsp. sunflower oil
• 1 Sierra Leone Jumbo stock cube, crumbled
• ***
• SESAME SEED CRUST:
• 3 oz. toasted white sesame seeds
• 1/2 oz. dried ginger flakes
• 3/4 oz. black sesame seeds
• 1/2 oz. dried garlic flakes
• 3 tsp. Aleppo pepper flakes (TFD change, original was 4 tsp. red pepper flakes)
• 2 tsp. pequin chili flakes (TFD selected this type of hot chili flake)
• ***
• sea salt flakes and lime wedges, to serve

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Instructions

1. For the fish balls, put all the ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth, scraping down the sides of the food processor as you go. Transfer to a bowl, cover and chill in the fridge for 30 mins. Meanwhile, prepare a steamer, lining the base with baking paper.
2. For the sesame seed crust, mix together all ingredients in a mixing bowl.
3. To make the fish balls, take the fish mixture out of the fridge. Measure out 1 tbsp and roll into a ball. Repeat with the remaining mixture – you should have enough for 15-20 fish balls. Roll the balls in the sesame seed crust mixture to coat well.
4. Put the coated balls in the prepared steamer and steam for 10-15 mins – you may need to work in batches depending on the size of your steamer. The balls are ready when the flesh is white throughout – cut into one to test. Serve warm with sea salt flakes and lime wedges.