Sudanese food at Hilarios

 

The most unforgettable meal I had on this trip was not in a restaurant but in a home. I met Ahmed at one of those epic Monday nights at the FTR back room over gin tastings and intense conversations about food and culture through our friend Michelle. 

Michelle is working with Ahmed, turning Hilarios, the old Portugese villa in Siolim that Ahmed and his family live in for part of the year, into a space that creates a real community over food, drink, stay, events and conversations. 

Although Ahmed shuttles between Goa and London, we were fortunate to have him join our conversation about identity, food and culture and he was generous enough to invite me to his home the next day to taste a Sudanese goat dish that he cooks along with a few of our friends. 

Turns out, it wasn’t just a dish but a full feast that Ahmed cooked for us. I had never eaten Sudanese food before and now I feel it’s a cuisine that I will search for whenever I travel.

We started with a simple peanut soup traditionally made with peanuts, onion, tomato and water in just twenty minutes with a sprinkle of lime for acidity. Because you don’t get great peanuts in Goa, Ahmed used peanut butter to create an intense peanut flavour. But what I don’t understand is how he managed to get such depth to the soup. We were convinced he had used meat stock but he hadn’t. It was just the four ingredients I mentioned, boiled and then blended before being sieved then served with lime added at the end. I’m tempted to try and make this but I realise that it’s impossible for me to replicate the magic of what I tasted.

After that came the actual feast. A Sudanese baba ganoush where the eggplant was first fried and was served in chunkier pieces than the ones we are used to. Goat liver cooked in a simple, light reduced sauce to let the smooth iron flavours of the liver to really stand out. A falafel without flour in the Sudanese style that had a lovely crunch as you bit into it and then a pop of dill with the chickpea, elevating this humble staple into a dish that showcased a mastery of technique. The hummus was the creamiest and smoothest I’ve ever had, the flavour heightened by the addition of tahini. And the tahini itself had was silkier than normal (because Ahmed whizzed his sesame in cold water according to food geek and serious expert Sid Mewara). 

The piece de résistance was the goat leg. Two whole roast goat legs, marinated in herbs and spices that I can’t begin to guess but that permeated deep into the meat, soaking in its juices, it took “melt in the mouth” to another level. Goat is my favourite meat and this dish showed why.. there is a gamey meatiness to goat that creates an incredible mouthfeel, but at the same time there’s a textural complexity in good goat that no game meat has, the fibrous (but not stringy) meat coming apart with every bite releasing juices and flavours into your mouth like some sort of sensory explosion. It is the world’s most underrated meat and in Ahmed’s hands it reached its highest form. 

This was the kind of meal and experience that fills me with gratitude. To meet this wonderful man and have him open his home and kitchen to us the very next day, to have him share his stories and culture and food and memories, to be able to see a glimpse of another world, to break bread and break down the temporal and spatial and social walls that separate us as human beings, to be united through food and feel that sense of love and communion and brotherhood and humanity… it validates all my life choices and inspires me to continue to explore the world, do discover and embrace it through food, drink, love and conversation!