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Sauce Odika au Poisson Fumé (Wild Mango Kernel Chocolate Sauce with Smoked Fish)
Intense, velvety Gabonese chocolate sauce made from roasted wild mango kernels simmered with flaked smoked fish and fragrant spices.
The story
A culinary cornerstone of the Myene, Bapounou, and Fang peoples of Gabon, Sauce Odika is reserved for esteemed guests, wedding feasts, and ancestral commemorations. Referred to locally as 'l'odika' or native chocolate due to its deep mahogany sheen and complex cocoa-like aroma, the sauce relies entirely on dried, fermented, and compressed wild mango seeds (Irvingia gabonensis). The secret to a non-bitter odika lies in gradually emulsifying the finely grated fat-rich kernel block into hot aromatics before gently folding in delicate local smoked river fish.
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