Angola is located in south-central Africa, it is the 7th largest country of Africa and has one of the fastest growing economies of the world. While I was researching dishes in Angola it was drawn to my attention how being a former Portuguese colony, Angola has a lot of Portuguese influence - from it's language to its cuisine, where this influence has been mixed with locally available ingredients and Angolan traditional cuisine to create a whole new range of flavours and dishes. I was very intrigued by the cuisine of Angola, being half Colombian I grew up in a country where the cuisine has a Spanish legacy combined with locally available ingredients, some of which are similar to those of Angola such as yuca or cassava, I felt excited about cooking the muamba de galinha and I really would have liked to serve it with funge, a cassava porridge which is how it is traditionally served but covid-19 is not making it easy to find certain ingredients, so I settled for rice! I am sure that I will make this again because it was incredibly simple and delicious!
The recipe calls for red palm oil which I also couldn't get hold of, and the oil is meant to give the dish a unique flavour. I found one recipe which suggested I could use vegetable oil so I went with that for now and the dish tasted delicious! Next time I will also try to find the palm oil. I had also intended to serve the chicken on the bone but it just fell off as I was serving, it was so tender and delicious!
Serves 5
Ingredients:
Juice of 1 lemon
4 garlic cloves, crushed
1-2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp chili powder
1kg chicken drumsticks (around 7)
vegetable oil
2 onions, diced
2 chilli peppers
4 tomatoes, quartered
1 butternut squash cut into 3cm cubes or around 700g of pumpkin also cubed.
1/2 cup chicken broth
300g okra cut into 2-3cm chunks.
Method:
Marinate the chicken by placing it into a plastic bag or a bowl with the lemon juice, 2 crushed garlic cloves, 1/2tsp of chilli powder and one of the chillies roughly chopped. Leave it to marinate for 15min to overnight.
In a large deep saucepan over medium-high heat add the oil (around 2tbsp should do it - but it will depend on the heat and the material that your saucepan is made of). Once it's hot brown the chicken on all sides, reserve any marinade. Don't overcrowd the chicken, you may need to brown the chicken in a couple of batches.
Once the chicken is browned add the onion, tomatoes, 1tsp chilli powder, salt, 1 whole chilly and the marinade to the saucepan. Reduce heat to low and simmer for an hour. You might wonder - there's no liquid in there, what I am supposed to be simmering? as the tomatoes and the chicken start to cook they will release juices and when you come back after an hour you'll be surprised how much juice is in there. (see pictures below)
Add the squash or pumpkin, chicken stock and okra. Cook on medium-high heat for 15 minutes until the squash is cooked. Serve with rice or funge.
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