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Writing about food made me hungry, so I decided to do some cooking. I tried to make my own take on ''ceebu jën''. For want of certain ingredients, I had make do with some substitutions. As the Polish fishing fleet no longer operates off the coast of Senegal, I’ve used Alaska pollock instead of the dusky grouper. And because it was cut into fillets, and not steaks, I had to simply smear it on all sides with the filling, which I made by blending parsley with two onions and a few garlic cloves). Then I also sprinkled the fish with smoked paprika and some herbal olive oil.
As for the veggies, I’ve used tomatoes, a large carrot, an eggplant (a regular one, not an African one) and two sweet potatoes (instead of regular ones, as I wanted something slightly more exotic). All this I boiled in water with potato tomato paste, then I removed the veggies and put the fish in their place.
Once the fish was done, I removed it as well, and put risotto rice into the broth. When the rice was done, I sprinkled it with some ''gumbo filé'' to take up the excess moisture. ''Gumbo filé'', or ground dried sassafras tree leaves, is as unobtainable in Poland as okra, but I still have a few jars that I bought once in the United States.