The Sinosphere · Volume 32, The Stocking, the Shelter and the Spice Route
Galinha à Africana (Macanese African Chicken)
Macau
An illustration of the dish, not a photograph of it cooked.
- Time
- 1 hour
- Reviewed
- Not yet reviewed from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Not yet cooked and reported
Macau's restaurant classic, invented sometime in the mid twentieth century, by nobody a single source can name with confidence.
As tradition built it
A credible build from documented composition, not presented as any named restaurant's own recipe.
Serves 4. About 1 hour, plus marinating.
Ingredients
- 1 whole chicken, jointed, or 8 chicken pieces
- 4 dried African bird's eye chillies, reconstituted, or 2 fresh if available
- 4 garlic cloves
- 1 tablespoon paprika
- 1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 200 ml coconut milk
- 1 tablespoon curry powder, ideally a mild Goan-style blend
- 1 tablespoon oyster sauce
- 1 teaspoon Chinese five-spice powder
- 2 bay leaves
- 50 g ground peanuts
Method
- Blitz the chillies, garlic, paprika, vinegar and olive oil to a smooth paste; marinate the chicken in it for at least 4 hours, ideally overnight.
- Grill or roast the chicken hard first, for char and a crust from the piri-piri marinade.
- Meanwhile, combine the coconut milk, curry powder, oyster sauce, five-spice, bay leaves and ground peanuts in a pan, and simmer gently until it thickens slightly.
- Finish the chicken in the sauce, either basting it repeatedly while grilling or baking it through in the sauce until fully cooked and the sauce clings rather than pools.
- Serve with rice.
What a modern chef changes
Three trade routes, kept distinct until the very end.
Rung 6
Method
- Make the piri-piri paste from scratch, and taste it entirely on its own before it meets anything else, blitzed smooth in a high-power blender, so it reads as its own layer in the finished dish rather than disappearing into a general "curry" flavour.
- Toast and freshly grind the curry spices in a dedicated spice grinder rather than using a shop-bought powder, since the dish's identity depends on the Goan-route spice character being distinct from the piri-piri and from the coconut body.
- Finish on a Big Green Egg at high, then indirect, heat: sear hard first for char, then move to indirect heat with the sauce to reduce and cling, rather than boiling the sauce down separately on a hob and pouring it over at the end.