Cachupa (Cape Verdean Slow Corn-and-Bean Stew, the National Dish) 🍽

Name: Cachupa (Cape Verdean Slow Corn-and-Bean Stew, the National Dish)
Prep time: 48 min
Cook time: 72 min
Total time: 120 min
Yield: 2-4 servings
Cuisine: Cape Verdean
Ingredients: 200 g dried white hominy corn (or large posenta grits), soaked overnight; 150 g mixed dried beans (black-eyed, kidney), soaked with the corn; 300 g pork shoulder or bone-in chicken, plus 1 slice smoked sausage or bacon; 1 cup cassava, 1 sweet potato, 2 plantains, peeled and cut in chunks (frozen bananas work too); 2 onions diced, 4 garlic cloves crushed, 1 bay leaf, small bunch cilantro; 2 tbsp tomato purée; 1–2 tbsp red palm oil (azeite de dendê) for the true color; 1 can (200 g) tuna in oil, optional, for the Friday version; Salt; black pepper; water or stock to cover generously (~2 L)

The dish the islands wrote their anthem about: dried corn hominy and beans simmered for hours with cassava, sweet potato, plantain and whatever the day allows — tuna and bones for fast days, pork, chorizo and game on feast days, always slicked with red palm oil and smelling of garlic and bay. Friday and Saturday are cachupa days the way Sunday is roast day anywhere else; reheated thin with a fried egg on top, it becomes cachupa refrita, the country's favorite breakfast re-declaration. Humble, one-pot, Atlantic-salty — a stew that survived drought and became identity.

West Africa Cape Verdean ⏱ 120 min Media

Método

1

Drain the soaked corn and beans, cover with fresh water, and bring to a bare simmer with the bay leaf — 40–50 minutes until the corn starts to split but still bites.
2

Add the meat, sausage and diced onion and garlic (plus tomato purée if using). Top up with hot water, keep it just bubbling, 40 minutes.
3

Stir in the hard vegetables — cassava and sweet potato first, 15 minutes, then plantains and the tuna with its oil. The stew should thicken as the corn releases starch; pull it loose with more hot water until it is soup-like, not porridge.
4

Finish with red palm oil, a fistful of torn cilantro, salt and pepper. Rest 10 minutes off the heat; it should look like a country landscape in one bowl.
5

Serve deep with a drizzle of raw palm oil and lime. Next-day rule: thin leftovers with water in a pan, fry hard, crack an egg into it — cachupa refrita, better than day one.

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