The country was formerly called the Republic of Upper Volta and it became independent from France in 1958. It changed its name to Burkina Faso in 1984.
Northwestern Burkina Faso has been inhabited since 14000 BC, it was invaded by France in 1896 and became part of French North Africa in 1904.
Burkina Faso is a very poor country that relies on adequate rainfall each year as 80% of its population is engaged in subsidence farming - cotton being the main crop. There are few natural resources although copper, iron, manganese and gold are mined there. In 2013 it ranked 65 out of 78 countries for food insecurity.
The cuisine is typical for western Africa with the staple foods being sorghum, millet, rice, maize, peanuts, potatoes, beans, yams and okra. The most common sources of protein are chicken, eggs and fresh water fish.
It has been over six months since our last food adventure. To be honest we kept putting it off because the recipes didn't sound that appealing. As I researched Burkina Faso and realized how poor the people are I become aware how lucky we are to be able to choose our food!
Having spent some time searching for recipes where we could find all the ingredients we eventually decided we would use the same recipes as a website called International Cuisine. They are making the same journey as us.
They started their meal with chips d'igname, or yam chips. We couldn't actually find any yams but we did find these ready made chips that contained yam - and very nice they were too!
Gary was in charge of the main dish Cuisses de poulet a la puree de patates douces. We used chicken legs rather than just thighs.
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| Frying the skins to try and crisp them up before adding the sauce. |
It smelt really good.
We also boiled some sweet potatoes and mashed them.
For no particular reason other than we didn't have any millet fermented Burkina Faso drink we had this homemade wine with our meal.
We knew they wouldn't take long so we left them until the chicken was nearly ready to cook them. Gary began serving the chicken as I busily stir fired - then we realized the chicken was really still a bit raw!
While the chicken benefitted from longer in the pan, the onion and garlic didn't and burnt! If I made this dish again (unlikely!) I would par-cook the beans first and then toss them in the onion and garlic. The beans were very al dente and the garnish was very charred!
Our final meal, very orange with a blackened garnish!
Everything was much more tasty that we had expected, a bit Thai-ey in fact. The chicken skin had pretty much dissolved into the sauce and the whole chilli actually added quite a kick.
An interesting experience.
That sounds really good.
ReplyDeleteCoconut and peanut in the chicken is an interesting combination and sweet potato mash is just yum. I could lose the al dente beans though!!