Southern Province · Pounded Cassava Leaves
Isombe (Cassava Leaf Stew)
Photo: Mutiganda / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
The leaves have to be pounded for a long stretch before cooking — done wrong, the dish turns out stringy instead of smooth.
Cassava leaves are pounded fine and simmered down with eggplant, onion, and often crushed groundnuts into a deep green, savory stew. Canteens and home cooks around Huye serve it over rice or with ugali, sometimes alongside grilled meat.
Why it's made this way: Considered one of Rwanda's most iconic dishes, isombe turns the leaves of the country's staple cassava crop into a hearty, protein-rich stew central to family and market cooking around the Southern Province and across Rwanda.
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