Poulet moambé

Ingredients

• Chicken — in pieces1.5 kg
• Palm fruit pulp — tinned800 g
• Onions2
• Garlic6 clove
• Ginger30 g
• Pili-pili chilli2
• Lemon2
• Aubergines2
• Spinach200 g
• Vegetable oil50 ml
• Rice — to serve400 g
• 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

   Rub the chicken with salt, pepper, garlic and lemon juice and leave it twenty minutes.

   22 min

2. 2

   Brown the chicken in oil on all sides and lift it out.

   15 min

3. 3

   Fry the onion with the ginger until soft, add the palm pulp and let it down with a cup of water.

   10 min

4. 4

   Cook the sauce twenty minutes, stirring, until a layer of red oil rises to the surface.

   22 min

5. 5

   Return the chicken, add the aubergine and the whole pili-piri and stew thirty minutes.

   32 min

6. 6

   Stir in the spinach for the last five minutes and remove the chilli.

   7 min

7. 7

   Serve with rice or with fufu made from cassava.

   10 min

About the dish

The base is the pulp of oil palm fruit rather than palm oil. It is thick, orange and nutty; tinned it is sold as noix de palme or sauce graine.

The sauce is cooked long, until a layer of red oil rises to the surface. That is the sign of doneness: until the oil separates, the flavour stays raw.

There is no cream and no tomato in the classic version. Lemon supplies the acidity, and the palm pulp alone supplies the body.

Worth knowing

• — Palm pulp can be replaced with peanut butter plus a spoon of palm oil for colour. The taste is different, and that is worth calling a substitution rather than a recipe.
• — Do not skim the red oil off the top. It is part of the dish, and in the Congo it counts as the best part of the sauce.
• — The chilli goes in whole. Pili-pili is very hot, and split it makes the dish inedible.

Nutrition

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

Calories

720 kcal

Protein

44 g

Fat

42 g

Carbs

44 g

More from DR Congo

• Liboke de poisson — Spiced fish wrapped in a banana leaf and baked in embers.