Nafy Flatley’s Senegalese Maafè with California Halibut

Nafy Flatley’s maafè is comfort in a bowl. The classic Senegalese stew is traditionally made with peanut butter, potatoes and sweet potatoes, tomatoes, tamarind paste, fish sauce and other flavorings, and it can be made with meat—chicken, lamb and beef are common—or served on its own with rice, couscous or even bread. 

"It’s the last meal I ate before immigrating to this country,” Flatley says. “It always takes me back to that last day, saying my goodbyes to my mom, getting on the airplane and coming to this country for my way of living the American dream.”

At Teranga, Flatley’s stand in the La Cocina Marketplace, the maafè is served plain or with chicken. It comes sprinkled with peanuts and sumac over jasmine rice. At home, and for catering jobs, Flatley also sometimes makes this classic dish with a variety of seafood. “Senegal is surrounded by ocean—just like San Francisco. So, you get a lot of seafood,” says Flatley. “There are different ways you can add seafood into the maafè: you can use shrimps, you can use scallops—you can really use any shellfish that you like. You can also use one fish that we call the capitaine [Atlantic croaker]. In Senegal, we call it thioff.”

When cooking the dish in San Francisco, however, Flatley uses local seafood, including sea bass, dourade and even ahi tuna. She also purchases her fish from local vendors like Monterey Fish Market in Berkeley or Royal Hawaiian Seafood in South San Francisco. “I am a small business,” says Flatley. “I love supporting other small businesses. That’s part of the mission of what Teranga does.”

[tasty-recipe id="9673"]