Dibiterie

For about a month now I have been spending a lot of time at a bar/restaurant/butcher place called Pinky's. It's our spot for every champions league game and a popular destination for some low-key fun any night of the week. As we became friendly with the staff there I ask one of the "dibiterie-ers" (butchers/cooks), named Gas, how he would feel about taking an apprentice. He was excited about it as I was and now, a couple nights a week, I spend a few hours there learning and doing all that is behind a dibiterie operation.



The way it works is we start with a few whole, skinned, lambs with everything else still intact. In the afternoon we clean break down the lamb into quarters and selections of the other lamb parts (liver, heart, head, intestines, lungs etc.) all of which is cooked, bought, and eaten. The tools of Dibiterie are a machete for breaking down the whole lamb, a smaller knife to slice onions, a large metal spoon to pull the meat off the grill and a piece of concrete framing steel used like a spatula. The quarters are stored in a freezer with whole chickens, pigeons, and the livers and hearts. All of these are cut up and cooked upon ordering over an open flame with sliced onions.

The other organs, heads and innards are wrapped up in paper concrete bags with oil and put on the grill, away from the direct heat of the fire, left to cook and steam slowly in their own juices within the bags. Meat is bought and cooked (with onions) by the kilo and served with Senegalese mustard (similar to Dijon, but better) and the house hot sauce (the same mustard mixed with crushed, dried red pepper). Special orders include a whole lamb which is first charred on the grill, then rubbed with oil and seasoning mixture, wrapped in paper and put back on the fire to cook for hours in the bag. This was probably the most delicious meat I've had here in Senegal, it was really moist and flavorful and pulled easily off of the carcass.