Le chef, who made a name for himself by taking part in ” Top chef “won a Michelin star in 2021 for its cuisine mixing African, Japanese and French influences.
“The paternity of mafé is disputed. As a descendant of Malians, I would tell you that he comes from our country, but Senegal and Mauritania would not agree. Everywhere, the heart of the recipe is peanut paste, mixed with palm oil, to which we add beef or mutton that simmers for hours. An invigorating dish that makes you want to sleep: in short, the equivalent of Burgundy in France. My mother cooked it every week for my brothers, my sisters and me. When I left my parents, I was so happy to escape!
And when I opened a restaurant… straight away, mafé took over. It was the dish of West African gastronomy that I mastered the best. And then, I always think of mom when I prepare it. Strangely or not, it’s one of the dishes that really stood out at MoSuke, the only one, out of the twenty or so that I’ve created, that has remained on the menu since the opening. And the Michelin talked about it in its column when it awarded me the star, it may have been played out on that. It’s a dish full of good vibes.
Before delivering my version of mafé, I told myself that I had to master the traditional recipe. For two or three weeks, I experimented, not always conclusively because cooking is transmitted a lot orally in West Africa. At the question “When do you know it’s cooked? »we often answer “when it shows”or at best “when the sauce slices”. I had to let my mafé burn at least once to form my own opinion.
“Do we feed the belly or the head? »
Once the basics had been mastered, I asked myself the question of the accompaniment too: my mother prepares the mafé with rice. Rice is often linked to African gastronomy, but it was introduced by the settlers. I wanted to go back to what was done before and, in the bush, in the Sahel, we ate mafé with fonio, this slightly clayey, earthy cereal, which has the reputation of being a poor product. It’s true that it’s less nutritious than rice, but you have to choose: do you feed the stomach or the head? Many customers react to the dish by asking me “Chief, where is the rice? » It leads to nice little debates, where we talk about ancestral culture. In general, Afro-descendants and children of immigrants are happy to see that I value an African product.
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