I was a little disappointed to not find a restaurant in London offering Gabonese dishes. Unofficial figures have the number of Gabonese in the UK overall at around 300 or so. As such, there isn't a sizeable ex-pat community to serve. I did check several pan-African restaurants to see if any of those served Gabonese cuisine, but I drew a blank. So it was back to the kitchen.
I had fairly quickly settled on a dish after just a small amount of research. Nyembwe chicken. Spicy chicken with no unpalatable ingredients. And ingredients I wouldn't struggle to find. Or so I thought...
As soon as the words "smoked chicken" actually sank in, I panicked. Smoked chicken isn't really something I've seen. Particularly in my local supermarket, which is where I source almost all of my ingredients (for various reasons, mostly time constraints). And I wasn't even going to entertain the idea of smoking my own chicken! I may have given it more thought if I hadn't also spotted another difficult ingredient - okra. I don't have a good relationship with okra, after a dish I cooked some years back. Back then, despite following all the instructions an okra curry came out as a gloopy, sticky-but-razor-sharp mess.
So I dug around some more for an alternative.
Another chicken dish popped up several times, which was a good enough reason to go for it. Gabonese mustard chicken.
It was an interesting proposition. A large amount of Dijon mustard was a major part of this dish, which relates to Gabon's history as a former French colony. The addition of lemon juice also added a tropical element to the dish.
I started with searing around 400g of seasoned and cubed chicken thigh meat in vegetable oil until brown, then set this aside. In the same pot I then fried two chopped onions and 3 cloves of garlic (minced) for five minutes or so.
I then returned the chicken to this pot, along with around 150g of Dijon mustard (which seems like too much, but don't worry), and the juice of one lemon. I brought this up to a simmer, covered the pot, and let this cook slowly for around one hour.
I served this meal in a balti dish with white rice. On eating, it was a really flavoursome meal. The lemon was very tangy and almost overpowering, but not unpleasant at all. It added a real twist to the dish. It was surprising how much of it came through. Not so much for the mustard. Despite almost a whole jar being dolloped into the pot, it was actually very delicate. You knew it was there, but only just. The onion complimented the whole dish nicely, especially as there was a good amount in the dish. With that amount, and how slowly the dish was cooked for one whole hour, the onion reduced nicely to add to the sauce. And the chicken had taken all these flavours mentioned above very nicely. Melt in the mouth, succulent chunks of chicken.
All in all, a very interesting and flavoursome dinner.
For some reason though, I knew at the research stage I wasn't going to be happy simply cooking this dish alone. Maybe it was too similar to the types of dishes I cook on a regular basis, with similar procedures to making a curry - something I'm known to do often.
Something I don't do often is dessert, but something had already taken my fancy. Baked bananas - a common dessert in Gabon and much of Africa.
This was a very easy dish to prepare. I bought four bananas, peeled them and cut them each into three pieces. Rolled the banana pieces in a mixture of 2 tablespoons of orange juice and 1 egg, and then rolled on a plate of plain breadcrumbs until covered. Then I fried the banana pieces in medium-hot oil until the breadcrumbs browned on all sides.
Then the bananas were transferred onto a baking tray lined with baking paper, and baked in the oven at 180ºc for five minutes. To serve, I placed the banana pieces on a plate, sprinkled with brown sugar, and topped with sour cream.
Unfortunately, I was so eager to eat this I completely forgot to photograph the end result! But I'm sure you can imagine. I was surprised at how the banana really stiffened up when cooked. For some reason I expected it to soften. It was an incredibly filling, almost stodgy, dessert. The sugar was crunchy, as was the breadcrumb coating. The texture contrasted well. The sour cream worked really well, and added a little extra sweetness to the whole thing. Thankfully, it wasn't particularly greasy or oily at all, which was an initial fear. It was a struggle to finish just because of the density of the bananas (and the fact I cooked/served a double portion each!).
All in all, this was a very good two-course Gabonese meal.
