To prepare the sauce, heat in pressure cooker and brown:

• 3 Tbsp. vegetable oil

• 1 Tbsp. red palm oil

• 2 lb. meat (cut into serving pieces or small chunks; chicken, lean pork or goat)

When meat is browned add:

• 4 cups tomato-onion-celery-pepper puree (about half of it is tomato, no water)

• 1 can (5 oz.) tomato paste

• 4 maggi beef bouillon cubes

• 2 Tbsp. Maggi sauce (or Soya sauce or W. sauce)

• tabasco or hot chilli powder to taste

Put lid and vent on pressure cooker, bring to pressure, cook about 20 minutes.  Lower pressure, open, taste and adjust seasonings.  Simmer uncovered until potatoes are done. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, brown the meat and add the sauce ingredients.  Then simmer on stove for about an hour or in the oven for about 1 1/2 hours (the bones should be tender and the meat well done). 

Now, instead of yam, we use:

• pounded potato

• cream of wheat

The potatoes must be peeled, cut, and cooked in salted water until very tender (use about twice as much as you would normally use).  New potatoes tend to be too sticky to pound.  Just before serving, mash them a bit and then put them into a wooden pounder a few cups at a time, adding about 1 Tbsp. cream of wheat for each cup of potatoes.  Pound with a wooden mallet until smooth and elastic (You are pounding air out so use those muscles).  If sticky, add more cream of wheat.  Put into covered serving dish and serve with sauce.  To eat, make sure everybody has washed their hands well, then eat from common pots or serve the sauce in small bowls and ruam in globs.  Pinch off a small ball of potato and work it into a ball, then make a dent with the thumb.  Scoop the ball into the sauce and pop into mouth.  Eat the chunks of meat with fingers.  Pass a basin of water and a towel to wash hands after eating. 

Note:  you cannot successfully reheat ruam as ruam:  it becomes mashed potatoes.  The sauce can also be served over rice.