Moambe Chicken (Poulet à la moambe)
Overview
Moambe chicken is a rich chicken stew from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, made with moambe, or palm butter. Palm butter is a thick orange paste made from the soft pulp of oil palm fruit, and it gives the sauce a deep colour and a nutty, fruity flavour. Chicken pieces are browned and then simmered with onion, garlic, tomato and chilli in a sauce of palm butter and water until tender. Some cooks add a little peanut butter. It is served with rice, fufu, or chikwangue, a fermented cassava bread, and often with saka-saka, cooked cassava leaves.
History
Moambe chicken is often called the national dish of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and in Kinshasa it is cooked for Sunday lunches and celebrations. The same palm butter sauce appears under other names across Central Africa, such as nyembwe in Gabon and muamba de galinha in Angola. Congolese communities brought the dish to Belgium, and it is served in restaurants in the Matonge district of Brussels.
Main ingredients
Chicken, palm butter, tomato, onion, garlic, chilli. The soup is built on palm butter sauce and is usually served hot. Diet: contains meat; usually gluten-free.
Explore: Chicken soups · Tomato soups
Recipe
Method
- 1
Season the chicken and brown it in the oil.
- 25 min
Add the onion, garlic and tomatoes and cook for 5 minutes.
- 3
Mix the palm butter with 600 ml warm water and pour it over the chicken.
- 445 min
Add the chilli and simmer gently for 45 minutes, stirring now and then, until the sauce is thick and oily on top.
- 5
Season and serve with rice or fufu.
- ✓
Serve. About 1h 20m from start to bowl.
Sources
Description, history and recipe written by SoupWiki and checked against the sources above. Calories and times are rough estimates.
