Nyembwe recipe

Gabon's national dish: smoked chicken simmered in the thick pulp pressed from boiled palm nuts, not in palm oil.

2 hoursmedium8 ingredients

Ingredients

• 400 g palm nut pulp
• 1 smoked chicken
• 2 tbsp red palm oil
• 1 onion
• 3 clove garlic
• 1 hot chili pepper
• 500 ml water
• 1 tsp salt

How to make Nyembwe

1. If you can get fresh palm nuts, boil 1 kg for 40 minutes, pound them in a mortar, knead the mash with warm water and strain it to collect a thick orange pulp. Outside Central Africa use 400 g of tinned palm nut pulp sold as sauce graine or noix de palme; without it the dish simply does not exist.
2. Put the pulp in a pot with 500 ml of water, whisk it smooth and simmer 20 minutes, stirring, until the oil rises orange on the surface.
3. Bone 1 smoked chicken and cut it into pieces. It must be smoked, not raw: the smoke carries half the flavour.
4. In a second pan heat 2 tablespoons of red palm oil and soften 1 sliced onion with 3 crushed garlic cloves for 6 to 8 minutes.
5. Add the chicken pieces and let them colour lightly for 5 minutes.
6. Tip the chicken and onions into the simmering palm sauce, drop in 1 whole chili and 1 teaspoon of salt, and simmer 20 to 30 minutes until the sauce coats a spoon. Do not add tomato; it turns the dish into a different stew.
7. Taste, remove the chili before it bursts, and serve with white rice, boiled cassava or pounded plantain.

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