Next up is Guinea-Bissau's neighbor and name-buddy: Guinea! I decided to make a very popular West African dish that came across my plate (pun intended) several times when doing research for this project. It's called poulet yassa (chicken yassa), and is often attributed to Senegalese cuisine, but is popular in neighboring countries like Guinea. The French influence on West African cuisine is very evident here, where the main ingredients are onion, lemon, and mustard. It's very different from other African dishes I've made. I also made a couple other things to accompany it, which I'll describe below.
For the yassa, I started with lots of onion. My eyes are very sensitive to onions, so you can imagine how much of a mess I was from slicing this many onions. They were sautéed with oil, garlic, and mustard.
I used tofu as the "chicken" part of this dish, which I baked lightly before braising with the rest of the ingredients.
I then added broth and lemon juice to serve as the braising liquid to create a sauce and infuse the flavors into the tofu.
As a side dish, I made patates, which is literally just sweet potato fries. I cut my sweet potato into wedges and deep-fried until crispy.
The richness of the sweet potatoes was a good compliment to the sharp-tasting yassa. They had a lovely crispness to the outside but still nice and creamy on the inside.
My favorite part of this meal was actually the ginger drink I made. Kind of like a non-carbonated ginger beer but with an even more complex flavor. The mixture calls for fresh ginger, cinnamon sticks, cloves, lemon juice, orange juice, and sugar steeped in boiling water then watered down a bit more with cold water. The lemon and orange juice I used came from a fresh lemon and orange. Super refreshing, and even good on a cool, rainy day in October when I made this.
Recipes Used: Chicken Yassa // Patates // Ginger Drink
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