Jus de Bissap
One of the first things I learned in Dakar is that if you want lunch, you need to woo Suzanne. She calls the office first thing in the morning and asks who will want to eat; four hours later she comes in, carrying a tower of fragrant tupperwares. After one week here, I have found that the longer you chat with Suzanne, the more generous your portions are. For dessert, if you’ve been very nice to her you can have Jus de Bissap, a sweet tea made with hibiscus flowers and served ice-cold.
My Wolof is really nothing to write home about, and Suzanne isn’t extremely fluent in French, but after some pointing and miming we agreed on a recipe. Jus de Bissap doesn’t seem difficult to make –the hardest part might be finding Bissap flowers outside West Africa. Many little shops in Dakar sell the dried flowers needed for Jus de Bissap in transparent plastic bags labeled Hibiscus sabdariffa (and more often than not, not labeled at all).
The Congo Cookbook suggests substituting them with dried cranberries or lingonberries, but I’m not sure how it would turn out.
- 2 cups dried hibiscus flowers (roselle)
- 1 cup of sugar
- 2 litres water
Modus operandi
- rinse the hibiscus flowers in cold water
- bring two litres of water to a boil
- add the hibiscus flowers and let steep for ten minutes
- strain and stir in sugar
Serve very cold and sip by the pool!
Posted by Teresa5 Comments so far
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That sounds delicious - I feel like I’m already tasting it just from your description!
It took me a moment to realize what ‘Wolof’ meant - thank you for providing enough context for poor people like me! :-) However, that statement OUT of context sounds rather funny - “My Wolof is really nothing to write home about.” - LOL!
You know, I remembered as I read this that they have dried hibiscus at the farmer’s market in Morgan Hill. I haven’t seen it around here. I will have to try this next time I am in California!
I think you can also buy the dried hibiscus flowers on Amazon.
This sounds good, and I remember eating red hibiscus petals in salads as a kid.
I am once again shamed by the number of languages you speak.
[…] Serve over rice and enjoy. For a drink, you can’t go wrong pairing maffe with bissap. Posted by Tom […]
I’m now trying the maffe. Your recipe is quite similar to the ones I heard from my Senegalese friends. For the bissa, in Latin America (maybe Mexico and Central America) we call it FLOR DE JAMAICA and you can get it from the Mexican food stores and by the way is used to lower pressure blood and to cleanse the urinary system but we do not add that quantity of sugar.