Maïmouna’s Cuisine brings West African flavors to Ithaca

Maïmouna’s Cuisine, a meal preparation and catering service offering West African cuisine to the Ithaca area, has a new venture that they are hoping local foodies will turn into a Friday night tradition: flavorful meals, lovingly cooked, packaged and delivered to your car at the First Baptist Church downtown. Pickup is between 4:45 and 7:45 p.m.

On maimounascuisine.com, customers can select items such as kopto salad, made from kale and/or collard greens, organic peanut butter with no salt or sweetener, and organic tomatoes, red onion, garlic, cold pressed olive oil, lemon and salt.

The menu is subject to change, but other items that were available for pickup on Aug. 29 were both chicken and vegetable variations of mafe (peanut stew), cilantro-lime sweet potato salad and a mango dessert made with couscous and Greek yogurt.

To drink, Maïmouna’s offers homemade organic ginger drink and bissap drink (red hibiscus), which can be enjoyed on their own or mixed together.

Ordering for the next Friday meal takes place on the website, starting at 9 a.m. on the Sunday before and ending on Thursday at 11 a.m.

Owner and chef Maïmouna Phelan, who is originally from Niger, is a trained chef who has years of experience in cooking prior to earning degrees in culinary arts and food entrepreneurship.

Phelan holds an Associate of Applied Science degree in both Culinary Arts (’21) and Hotel and Restaurant Management (’20) from Tompkins Cortland Community College. She received her Bachelor of Arts degree in Food & Beverage Entrepreneurship at Johnson & Wales University in May 2024.  

She has taught several cooking classes for Lifelong, and she used to cook the very popular special West African hot bar every other Friday at Greenstar.

Maïmouna is assisted by her husband, Bill Phelan, who spent 25 years working in West Africa administering international not-for-profit organizations doing relief and development work. He recently retired from his position as an administrator for the Latin American and Caribbean Studies program at Cornell University. In his youth, he worked at several renowned Ithaca-area restaurants and is known by family and friends for his desserts.

The use of organic, local ingredients is important to Maïmouna. She sources her food from Hector Hot Peppers, Stick and Stone Farm, Westhaven Farm and the Ithaca Farmers Market, among other suppliers.

She uses only olive and avocado oils and does not use vegetable, corn or canola oils. She would have to be “in a real pinch” to use bottled lemon juice instead of fresh, Bill said.

“For me, I care about whether I would serve it for myself,” Maïmouna said. “What I eat, I want also for the customer, and if it is something that I will not eat, I don’t want to serve it to people. I try my very best to really serve what I can do best.”

The couple hopes that the weekly menu will serve as a convenient way for people to become familiar with Maïmouna’s food.

“We’re hoping that people will give us a try, and they’ll let us cook for them on Friday,” said Bill. “Take a load off your feet.”

Maïmouna loves introducing her customers to new flavor combinations like leafy greens and peanut butter or lemons and onions, the two main flavors that come together in yassa.

“We wish people who say they don’t like onions would try yassa, because we think they actually would like the way it tastes,” said Bill, “because they get cooked down, and they’re more sweet.”

“There is some sweetness that you can experience,” Maïmouna agreed, adding that the flavors are set off by black pepper and salt.

She likes to provide a hot sauce to accompany a meal and makes a mildly spicy-to-medium version, as well as a very hot option for those who enjoy a lot of heat.

“We try to be as healthy as we can,” Maïmouna said at the First Baptist Church Commissary Kitchen.

This ethos has led Maïmouna to introduce students in her cooking classes to substitute ingredients. Any recipe that can be made with a diet-friendly twist is modified to accommodate allergies, intolerances and dietary preferences. She said she enjoys coming up with creative solutions to replace couscous in her dishes, for instance.

“So if you’re not doing wheat, but want couscous, try rice or sorghum or one of the others,” Bill suggested.

Many of her recipes can be made vegan.

Maïmouna’s next cooking class takes place on Sept. 20 at the First Baptist Church Ithaca Commissary Kitchen from 10 a.m. to noon. During the class, students will learn how to cook two versions of a peanut stew with meat, greens or other vegetables, known as tigadegena in Mali, maafé in Senegal, gisma foye or miya yakoua in Niger. The dish is served with rice, fonio, millet couscous and more.

Maïmouna will also demonstrate how to make the vegan version of this dish, which can be spiced up by adding habanero or scotch bonnet pepper, according to the individual student’s heat tolerance.

The side dishes will be Nigerien kopto salad and Ivorian claclo or cracro  (plantain beignets fritters), served with a savory sauce.

Children aged 9 to 12 are welcome if they are accompanied by a participating adult.

Individual adult and group children cooking classes, available for a unique Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, birthday or graduation gift, can be arranged by emailing maimounascuisine@gmail.com.