fried chicken pieces served with a thick cornmeal porridge turned out onto the plate
Click on the image, above to submit to Pinterest.

Amiwo au Poulet (Chicken Amiwo)

Amiwo au Poulet (Chicken Amiwo) is a traditional Beninese recipe for a classic dish of cornmeal porridge with fried chicken pieces and an onion, bell pepper and chilli sauce. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Beninese version of: Chicken Amiwo (Amiwo au Poulet).

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

35 minutes

Total Time:

55 minutes

Serves:

6

Rating: 4.5 star rating

Tags : Chilli RecipesSauce RecipesChicken RecipesFowl RecipesVegetable RecipesBenin Recipes

(click this button to prevent the screen from sleeping so Cook Mode is 'ON')



Also known as Djinkoumè, this is a classic meal for Benin.

Ingredients:

1 whole chicken, washed and jointed
500g cornmeal (ground maize)
600g tomatoes, washed and chopped
100g dried prawns, ground
25ml groundnut oil
3 large onions, finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 bell peppers, finely chopped
2 green chillies, finely chopped
2 green chillies, pounded in a mortar
4 tbsp fresh parsley, chopped
2 celery sticks (with green), finely chopped
salt and freshly-ground black pepper

Method:

Add 60ml water to a pan with the parsley, celery, salt and black pepper and two of the garlic cloves. Bring to a simmer, add the chicken pieces and cook for 15 minutes.

After this time, heat the groundnut oil in another pan. Remove the chicken pieces from the first pan and fry in the oil until they are golden brown all over. Remove the chicken pieces and set aside to keep warm.

Fry 1 onion in the remaining oil until golden (about 8 minutes) then stir in 2/3 of the tomatoes along with 1 garlic clove, the ground prawns and the chillies. Stir in 500ml of water, bring to a boil and cook for 5 minutes.

After this time, take 100g of the cornmeal and mix with a little water to form a smooth paste. Pour this into the boiling sauce and stir until you have a smooth slurry. Cover the pan and cook for 15 minutes. Now, stirring constantly, work in the remaining cornmeal. Stirring constantly, continue to cook until the mixture comes together as a paste so stiff that you can no longer stir it.

In the meantime, combine the remaining tomatoes, bell peppers and chopped chillies in a pan. Cook gently for about 15 minutes, or until the tomatoes break down into a sauce.

Turn the cornmeal paste into the centre of a serving dish. Form a pit in the centre and pour the tomato sauce into this. Surround with the chicken pieces and serve.