Poulet DG

Ingredients

• Chicken — in pieces1.4 kg
• Plantains — ripe but firm4
• Carrots3
• Green beans200 g
• Bell peppers2
• Onions2
• Tomatoes3
• Garlic5 clove
• Ginger30 g
• Scotch bonnet1
• Thyme3 sprig
• Oil for frying300 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Marinate the chicken in crushed garlic, ginger, thyme, salt and pepper for half an hour.

   32 min

2. 2

   Fry the chicken in oil until browned all over and lift it out.

   15 min

3. 3

   Cut the plantain into large pieces and fry it in the same oil, to caramelised edges.

   12 min

4. 4

   Pour off most of the oil and fry the onion, tomatoes and pepper until soft.

   10 min

5. 5

   Return the chicken, add the carrot, beans and the whole scotch bonnet, pour in a cup of water and stew twenty minutes.

   22 min

6. 6

   Remove the chilli, fold in the plantain and warm it three minutes. Serve at once.

   6 min

About the dish

The plantain is fried separately and added at the very end. Stewed with everything else it softens and loses the caramelised edges it was fried for.

The chicken is also browned first rather than stewed raw. Both go through the oil separately and meet already cooked.

The name stands for "poulet directeur général": in the 1980s the dish was expensive enough that only bosses could order it. The name stuck and the price fell.

Worth knowing

• — Use plantain that is ripe but firm. Overripe, it disintegrates in the oil; green, it stays starchy.
• — The vegetables should keep their bite. Twenty minutes is enough; longer and the carrot and beans go soft for no purpose.
• — The chilli goes in whole and must come out. Burst, it makes the dish inedibly hot.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

42 g

Fat

34 g

Carbs

62 g

More from Cameroon

• Ndolé — Bitter leaves with peanut paste, meat and prawns. The national dish of Cameroon.