I was particuarly pleased to have found Guinean food for the previous review, albeit from a Senegalese food outlet. I was pretty certain, however, I wouldn't strike it lucky when I started looking for food from Guinea-Bissau in London. I was spot on.
My last option was to identify what is commonly seen as the, or one of the, national dishes of the nation. Caldo de mancarra popped up repeatedly. Peanut stew. I did think it was possible I'd find a West African food outlet in London serving this dish, but I came up with nothing. So it was time to head back into the kitchen.
The prospect of cooking this dish was actually quite a good one. I had cooked dishes like this before. I quite enjoy cooking with peanut butter, but it does get messy. And it's difficult not to be dragged down by the guilt of the sheer amount of fat and calories involved. But... there's nothing to be gained from that type of thinking...!
The ingredients were pretty simple. Which was just as well as I sourced them on Easter Sunday, when all of the largest supermarkets were closed! I was restricted to a fairly medium sized Tesco Express. The recipe only required the basics. Tesco Express does the basics.
There are several versions of caldo de mancarra. Shrimp is popular. However I opted for chicken. Ideally I'd have gone with boneless chicken thighs. Not basic enough for Tesco Express apparently. So chicken breast it was.
I diced four chicken breasts, plopped in some olive oil, seasoned with salt, cracked black pepper and three chopped red chillies, mixed well so the diced chicken was well covered, and then marinated for 10 minutes in the fridge.
After which I fried the above with 1 large chopped onion until the chicken was just browned, then added 500ml of boiling water with one chicken stock cube dissolved, stirred, and cooked this on a low heat for around 20 minutes.
During which I added 250g of peanut butter (crunchy or smooth - up to you) to a bowl with two large chopped tomatoes, and blended this into a smooth paste. I'd recommend mixing the chopped tomatoes and peanut together with a spoon first. Blenders don't like to tackle only peanut butter head on; the juice from the tomatoes definitely helps that process.
The peanut and tomato paste was eventually added to the chicken and onion broth, thoroughly mixed together, and cooked for another 20 minutes. Then I cooked 200g of white rice to serve with the stew.
It became quite clear quite quickly that my proportions were way off. I had a lot more sauce than anything else. When serving up I ensured I used a slotted spoon to make sure I was serving enough chicken and onion first, before spooning over more of the sauce as desired. After serving around half of the remaining sauce was left in the pan.
As for the dish itself, it was very vibrant looking and still quite flavoursome, despite each plate only really having a quarter of the ingredients. The peanut flavour was definitely there, but in no way overpowering. Nice and delicate, with a decent kick coming through from the chillies. The tomato helped the meal's vibrancy, physically with how it looked, and adding a slight sweetness to the sauce. The chopped onion helped give the sauce some good substance.
The consistency of the sauce was perfect, suiting the white basmati rice perfectly. This was a very substantial meal. The sauce does become slightly hard work to finish just because of the consistency and richness. Not necessarily a bad thing, but it did turn into a struggle.
In the end this was a very enjoyable, satisfying and wholesome meal. Moving from our spot anytime soon after the meal wasn't really an option, so it was actually quite good that we were at home and not in a restaurant that we needed to leave.
And the best part is we'd do it all again two days later with the leftover sauce and more chicken breast from the freezer!
