Next time I will use 2 trays of the chicken gizzards as those were better then the drumsticks.
Sunday, December 1, 2013
Angolan chicken in peanut gravy
Stealing some inspiration from Tom Gowans at Hippo On the Lawn I made my own version of his Muamba da Galinha. An Angolan peasant dish made of chicken bits in peanut gravy.
He uses feet and wings, but having found a cheap tray of gizzards along with 3
drumsticks at the supermarket I figured that would work as well.
Brown the gizzards in some of thursday's duck fat
. . . as well as the drumsticks
Chop up one large white onion, some garlic and the left over tomatoes from this summer's patio crop.
and a handful of roasted red peppers
Brown the onions and garlic a bit, then add the peppers and tomatoes. In the meantime boil up three cups of water and one cup of unsweetened peanut butter in a separate pot til its all nicely dissolved and makes a nice creamy sauce.
Add the chicken bits back in the pot with salt an pepper to taste . . .
. . . and cover with the peanut sauce . . .
. . . . let it all simmer for a couple of hours . . .
. . . . and serve over white rice . . . . It was a total hit . . . a bit of cilantro and chives would have added the extra touch of contrast.
Next time I will use 2 trays of the chicken gizzards as those were better then the drumsticks.
Next time I will use 2 trays of the chicken gizzards as those were better then the drumsticks.
As said, come down here and we can open a delikatessen restaurante. I could help making fied and poché eggs and making potato pure -dehidratated variety. But dont ask me to eat gizzards...
ReplyDeleteLooks good! His recipe for red cabage sounds amazing as well but I need to find some time to make it!
ReplyDeleteHey Kev, I will have to page back on Tom's blog to find it. I can assure you if you try this one you won't regret it.
DeleteLooks good. I will be cooking through the long winter evenings. Always looking for new things to try
ReplyDeleteTake care
Dan
Hey Dan, thanks for stopping by, I am sure if you save the gizzards from some of the fowl you hunt you'd can make a nice dish with them. I am thinking even kidneys, or tripe might work well for this dish. I just never thought of using peanut paste/butter as a base for a stew, but it really works well and is dead nuts easy.
DeleteYour version looks much, much better than mine and the idea of using gizzards is inspired! The chicken you use needs to be the really tough kind, a real half wild barnyard scratcher otherwise the meat is too soft and bland.
ReplyDeleteSince you obviously like the idea of peanut paste, and now I am about to contradict myself a bit, use a normal fat chicken, portion it out and boil it (I am not going to go into too much detail, you clearly know what you are doing but make sure you have fresh coriander stalks in the water) to make a chicken stock, Fish out the meat and let it cool before stripping the flesh off the bones,
Fry up some chopped onions, a clove of garlic until glossy, add your favourite curry powder mix and chopped chilli to taste and stir before adding a cupful of stock. Chop up some Ananas (what the hell is Ananas in English?) into cubes and throw that in as well as a couple of sliced tomatoes. Keep adding stock and reducing until the sauce is thick. Add a decent knob of peanut paste and stir in well. Add the meat and chopped fresh coriander and warm through before adding enough coconut cream to loosen the mixture nicely. Warm through and serve with rice.
I would be really interested to see how you improve this recipe! I'm going to try your version of Muamba da Galinha tonight. I believe we have frozen chicken gizzards in the shop.
BTW, I cannot seem to find the ingredients I need to do my version of Butternut soup. And then my photos would be rubbish anyway. How about I send you my recipe and then you do it in your usual professional way modifying as your gut instinct suggests, post it on your blog and guest post it with full credit on mine? If you cannot find Butternut, it works with any kind of squash including pumpkin. If you want game recipes, I'll send you loads.
Tom, yes the gizzards work really well as they are a tough muscle that can take 2 hours of simmering and the flavor is much better than the rest of the chicken. Last night I used the left over sauce browned up a couple of drumsticks and let them simmer in the sauce for a a half hour and added some cilantro and it was superb. I shall have to try the curry/peanut/coconut chicken as well. Sounds real interesting. Love the new ideas to add variety to my repertoire. I will try your version of the squash soup as well send us the recipe. As it is early winter here there is plenty of fall squash left. As for the pictures it really is all the camera. I can't really take the credit. What I have is a Pansonic-Lumix DMC-LX-7. Google it for reviews. It has a lens aperture form 1.6 to 8 and will shoot to asa/iso 12800. So you never really need a flash and can shoot in near 100 % darkness without a flash without a tripod. I use it on program mode though it has full manual, full auto, aperture and shutter speed priorities. All food shots are taken in macro mode at 100 asa no flash so you get that warm natural light as opposed to the stark white of a flash. The rest is just playing with framing the image. Unfortunately on Friday when I went flying and I had the camera stuck in my coat as it was impossible to fit it in my pocket and it took a tumble on the pavement as I exited the plane and I dented a corner. Still seems to work though.
DeleteI have an Olympus e-510 yet I bought my son a two hundred dollar video camera and it takes far nicer photos. I hear what you say about the flash. The best photo I ever took was when I physically held down the flash so it could not pop up:
ReplyDeletehttp://hippo-on-the-lawn.blogspot.com/2013/08/at-last-decent-photo.html
How do I send you the recipe without posting it on my blog first?
Don't forget the pineapple (I've remembered) in the curry as well.
Tom: You can contact me directly at isserfiq at gmail dotcom
Deletehi! i just came over from hippo on the lawn and tried to sign on to follow but all i get is a blank page? i will try again in a bit. great blog. i'll add you to my sidebar.
ReplyDeleteHi Jaz, thanks for stopping by. Looks like what ever you did got you subscribed as your avatar shows on the top of my side bar as a subscriber. My posts are positively bland compared to Tom's but I'll do my best to provide some entertainment.
DeleteJust checking your recipe, I shall be cooking this for supper tonight. If I start now, it will be ready when Marcia walks in through the door. Naturally, in keeping with our tradition, I shall have to modify the recipe. Perhaps a dash of coconut milk?
ReplyDeleteYes, that's the neat thing about archiving in a blog, months later when I can't remember exactly what I did I can go back and look it up. I did a repeat of the dish about 3 weeks after I first did it but used gizzards I bought frozen at the supermarket and it did not seem to work as well. It seems the freezing and thawing seemed to make them release a lot more juice and they never got caramelized on the initial fry-up. So a lot of the taste was missing. Fresh is always best. I also did not use quite as many tomatoes as we were short on them and learned that you really need the earthy acidity of the tomatoes to balance the peanut sauce. I figure equal proportions of each if anything heavy on the tomatoes.
Delete