Nyama choma

Ingredients

• Goat meat — leg or ribs, in large pieces2 kg
• Lemons3
• Garlic6 clove
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Tomatoes4
• Red onion2
• Coriander30 g
• Chilli1
• Maize flour — for the ugali400 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 meat with salt, pepper, the juice of two lemons, crushed garlic and oil. Leave it an hour.

   15 min

2. 2

   Light the coals and let them ash over. The heat is right when you can hold a palm above the grate for five seconds.

   25 min

3. 3

   Lay the meat on in whole pieces and grill, turning every ten minutes, for an hour and twenty.

   82 min

4. 4

   Mix the diced tomato, onion, coriander and chilli with lemon juice and salt; that is kachumbari.

   12 min

5. 5

   For the ugali bring a litre of water to the boil, rain in the flour, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon, and work it fifteen minutes into a firm mass.

   20 min

6. 6

   Rest the meat ten minutes, cut it small across the grain and serve with ugali, kachumbari and salt.

   12 min

About the dish

The meat is grilled in whole large pieces over low coals, for an hour or more. Fierce heat gives a crust and a raw middle; what is wanted is even heat all the way through.

The marinade is minimal: salt and lemon, sometimes garlic. In Kenya the view is that spices hide the quality of the meat, and good goat does not need them.

It is jointed after cooking, in front of the guests, and cut small across the grain. It comes on a wooden board with salt and kachumbari, and is eaten by hand.

Worth knowing

• — The pieces have to be large. Small ones dry out in twenty minutes and the point of slow grilling is lost.
• — The meat is cut after grilling, not before. Cutting it early sends the juices into the coals.
• — The ugali is worked long and hard. Underworked, it stays lumpy and cannot be picked up with the fingers as it should be.

Nutrition

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

Calories

620 kcal

Protein

52 g

Fat

28 g

Carbs

42 g

More from Kenya

• Sukuma wiki — Collard greens stewed with onion and tomato. The everyday accompaniment to ugali across East Africa.