cook.
Ingredients
1200 g chicken pieces on the bone 6 cloves garlic, crushed 2 tbsp lemon juice 100 ml red palm oil (dendê) 2 onions, sliced 3 tomatoes, chopped 2 jindungo or other hot chillies, whole 400 g pumpkin or butternut squash, in chunks 250 g okra, stalks trimmed but left whole 300 ml water salt and black pepper, to taste Method
Marinate the chicken for 30 minutes in the garlic, the lemon juice and plenty of salt and pepper. This is not optional in Angola and it is the difference between seasoned meat and seasoned sauce. Warm the palm oil gently - it is solid or cloudy when cold and should melt, not smoke. Overheated dendê loses both its colour and its taste. Brown the chicken in the oil on all sides, then lift it out. Soften the onions in the same oil for 8 minutes, add the tomatoes and cook them down for 5 more until they break up. Return the chicken with the water and drop in the whole chillies. Do not pierce them - whole, they perfume the pot; split, they make it uneatable. Simmer covered for 25 minutes. Add the pumpkin and cook for 15 minutes, until it is soft enough to collapse when you press it against the side of the pot. Press some of it in: that is your thickening. Lay the okra on top for the last 8 minutes only, and do not stir it much. Left whole and added late it stays firm; cut up and stirred it turns the sauce ropy. Fish out the chillies before serving, and serve with rice or funge.