matapa [Angola]

This week I made matapa, which is an Angolan dish. The recipe I found was in Portuguese, so there were probably translation / cultural miscommunications (for example, the photo in the recipe appears to have red peppers and carrots, but the recipe didn't call for that, so I didn't put it in).

The first step was to grind up a bunch of peanuts into powder. I used my new mortar and pestle for it. It was pretty fun but got tiring after a while.

Instead of actual shrimp, I used All Vegetarian vegan shrimp. This was a mistake. I bought 6 packs of it (currently in my freezer) and used two for this dish. Somehow I'm going to have to figure out how to use the rest (or maybe I just overcooked it in this dish) but it was not good.

I used cabbage instead of cassava leaves. Otherwise, I followed the recipe pretty closely and served it with white rice.

It didn't end up looking like the photo in the recipe, like... at all. 

Verdict: unfortunately, I am not going to be able to finish this. I don't think it's the recipe's fault at all; I think it's the fake shrimp I used. It just has the wrong texture and taste. It doesn't help that the recipe itself is quite rich due to the peanuts and coconut milk, and not seasoned much at all (it probably does require seasoning, but it's not called for in the recipe).