Macanese African Chicken/Galinha à Africana

African chicken is also known as galinha à Africana in Portuguese. But it’s a well-known Macanese chicken dish. Many Macanese dishes had been influenced by Portuguese cuisine due to its colonial past, this one also.

Food culture of Canton(Guangdong), Hong Kong and Macau had been influenced by many western food culture and southeast Asian food culture, so a fusion of food ingredients, seasoning ingredients and cooking methods of different cultures can be easily seen in the food of these three places.

This dish is one of the representatives. Soy sauce is typical Chinese; coconut and peanut butter are Southeast Asian; tomato, rosemary and thyme are Portuguese; cocoa is African.

Serve 2

Ingredients –
Chicken thighs, 500g. Other parts of chicken are good as well;
Potato, 400g. In this recipe, I use new potato;

Seasoning ingredients –
Onion, half;
Coconut floss, 3tbsp;
Cocoa powder, 2tbsp. Similar amount of dark chocolate is good;
Peanut butter, 3tbsp;
Tomato sauce or tomato soup, 1 can;
Turmeric, 1tbsp;
Light soy sauce, 3tbsp;
Mixed herbs(rosemary, sage and thyme), 1tbsp;
Thai red chili, 3, optional;
Butter, a knob, or 3tbsp of cream or coconut milk.

How to do –
1. Marinade the chicken with soy sauce and turmeric for 1 hour in fridge;

2. Heat some oil in hot pan, seal the chicken till golden. Keep medium heat or the marinated chicken will easily get burnt;

3. Heat some oil in hot cast iron casserole, fried the chopped onion till turn golden;

4. Lower the heat, put in the canned tomato sauce, mixed herbs, cocoa powder, peanut butter, and the soy sauce and turmeric mixture that marinated the chicken. Mix well;

5. Put in the chicken and potato chunks, add a little water till they are covered by the sauce. Mix everything well and turn to high heat, bring to boil, keep stirring otherwise the sauce would easily stick to the bottom. Then turn to low heat, lid on and simmer for 40 minutes. You could put in a oven as well;

6. After simmering, put in the chopped chili, butter and 2tbsp of coconut floss. Mix well and it’s good to serve;

7. Go with steamed rice or toasted baguette, up to you.