For our Ivory Coast meal, I went with kedjenou, a chicken and vegetable dish, cooked slowly in a tightly-sealed pot. There’s no liquid added, and you must shake the pot occasionally to keep it from sticking. Apparently “kedjenou” means to shake in Baoulé – one of the sixty(!) languages spoken in the Ivory Coast. I pretty much followed the recipe on the Whats4eats website, but all the ones I looked at were all pretty similar.
Kedjenou
(serves 4)
- one chicken, cut into eight pieces (I used eight chicken thighs)
- one large eggplant, peeled and cubed
- 2-3 tomatoes, seeded and chopped
- 2 onions, thinly sliced
- 2 hot chilli peppers
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 Tb ginger, minced
- 1 tsp thyme, dry
- 1 bay leaf
- salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 325°F.
- Add all the ingredients to a large oven-proof pot with a tight-fitting lid. Cover the pot with one or two layers of aluminum foil and place the lid on top of the foil.
- Place the pot in the oven and bake for 2 to 3 hours. Remove the pot from the oven occasionally and shake it to keep the chicken from sticking.
- Remove the pot from the oven and let it rest for ten minutes. Serve hot with attiéké (cassava couscous), regular couscous or rice.
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