Central Africa · Volume 08, The Forest Larder
Ntaba, the nganda grill
Kinshasa and Brazzaville
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour
- Researched
- Researched from 103 sources in the brief
- Reviewed
- Awaiting a reader from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Awaiting a cook report
The nganda is the defining evening institution of Kinshasa: grilled meat, beer and sociability. Its origin is usually given as bivouacs de pêcheurs, fishermen's camps that became an urban form, and that etymology could not be corroborated. Congo-Brazzaville has a named version of the grill itself, Ya Jean: smoked goat cut to order on site, seasoned, wrapped in paper and grilled. Note the order. Smoked first, then grilled.
As tradition built it
Serves 6. About 1 hour, plus marinating.
Ingredients
- 1.5 kg goat shoulder or leg, on the bone, in large pieces
- 3 onions, two blended and one sliced raw to serve
- 6 garlic cloves
- 30 g fresh ginger
- 2 chillies
- 2 tbsp oil
- 2 lemons juice of 2 lemons
- to taste, to serve salt, and pili pili to serve
Method
- Blend the onions, garlic cloves, fresh ginger, chillies, oil, the juice of 2 lemons and salt, and rub it hard into the goat shoulder or leg. Marinate at least 4 hours, better overnight.
- Build a charcoal fire (makala) and let it settle to a moderate even bed with no flame.
- Grill slowly, turning often, 40 to 50 minutes, until cooked through, deeply coloured, and the fat has rendered into the coals.
- Serve with raw onion rings, pili pili, and either makemba, fried plantain slices, or lituma, boiled plantain pounded with palm oil and sliced.
Notes
A related and purely nganda dish worth knowing: poso ya ngulu, pork skin squares marinated and smoked, served with chilli powder and raw onion rings.
What a modern chef changes
Smoke first, grill second, and a spiced dust at the end
Rungs 3, 5 and 6
Method
- Smoke, then grill, and understand why that order. This is the Ya Jean sequence and it is what Joyce Kudia does with her ntaba: low smoke first for penetration and collagen conversion, then hard direct heat for the Maillard crust. Goat shoulder at 110°C over hardwood for 2 hours 30, then onto a hot grill for 6 to 8 minutes to colour. The other way round and the crust insulates the meat against the smoke.
- Or use the Big Green Egg as one vessel. 110°C with a chunk of beech and the plate setter in for the smoke phase, then pull the setter, open the vents, let it climb to 250°C and finish direct. One fire, both stages, no transfer.
- Brine or dry-cure before the marinade. 3 per cent salt by weight, 12 hours, then the aromatic rub. Goat is lean and that marinade is acidic; salt gets in where lemon and onion only sit on the surface.
- Finish with a dust, not a sauce. Rung 6 in another form. Dry the spent smoked fish from your stock in a low oven, mill it with dried chilli and a little dried onion, and dust the hot meat at the pass. Salt, umami, smoke and heat arriving as a dry crust on a wet surface, which is what the region's dried and powdered ingredients are for.
Notes
Part Four