Kuku Paka

Name: Kuku Paka
Total time: 1 h 15 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Kenyan
Ingredients: 1.2 kg Chicken thighs and drumsticks, bone in, skin on; 800 ml Coconut milk; 2 Onion, finely chopped; 6 cloves Garlic, crushed; 4 cm Ginger, grated; 3 Green chillies, split; 1.5 tsp Ground turmeric; 2 tsp Ground cumin; 2 tsp Ground coriander; 2 Tomato, chopped; 2 Lime, juice and wedges; 25 g Fresh coriander, chopped; 3 tbsp Oil; 2 tsp Salt

Chicken charred over coals first, then simmered in a thick coconut curry sharp with lime and green chilli — the Swahili coast's best-known dish, and grilled twice for a reason.

Nguồn

Công thức của Swahili coast kitchens · 🏺 Truyền thống · The Indian Ocean side of Kenyan food — coconut, cardamom and fried dough, shaped by centuries of trade between the Swahili coast, Arabia and India.

Kenyan · Swahili coast — An ownerless traditional dish, so no cook is credited. The cited article confirms the chicken-in-coconut-curry definition and the alternative name kuku na nazi. Quantities and the grill-then-simmer method are this book's own.

Background on Wikipedia ↗

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Các bước

Rub the chicken with the juice of one lime, 1 tsp of the salt and half the turmeric. Leave it 20 minutes.
Grill the pieces over hot coals or under a hot oven grill for 12 minutes, turning, until the skin blackens in patches. It does not need to cook through.
💡 The char is the dish. Skip the grill and simmer it raw and you have a decent coconut chicken curry, but not kuku paka.
Meanwhile fry the onion in the oil for 10 minutes, then add the garlic, ginger, chillies and the rest of the spices and cook 2 minutes.
Add the tomato and cook it down for 5 minutes, then pour in the coconut milk and the rest of the salt.
Slide the grilled chicken in and simmer very gently for 25 minutes, spooning the sauce over. Do not let it boil hard.
💡 Coconut milk splits at a rolling boil and cannot be brought back. Keep the surface barely trembling for the whole 25 minutes.
Finish with the juice of the second lime and the fresh coriander. Serve with rice, chapati and lime wedges.

💡 Mẹo

Kuku paka is Swahili-coast cooking with an Indian hand in it — the spice mix arrived with traders and stayed.
Some cooks add halved boiled eggs and potatoes to the sauce for the last ten minutes. Both are traditional.
It is better the next day, but reheat it gently — the same rule about not boiling the coconut milk applies.