Today’s cooking lesson killed two birds with one stone: It is Wednesday and that’s “Cooking with Mbosse” day, but I was also invited to a potluck with neighboring volunteers, so I asked Mbosse if we could start later, and cook for more. Always accommodating, Mbosse helped me make Chicken Yassa for 6 people. I’m going to be the hit of this pot luck!

Yassa is yet another Wolof dish (man, these people can cook!) and “yassa” means to grill. If we didn’t grill the chicken, this wouldn’t be yassa. I don’t need to convince you that Mbosse has pulled out her “Bon Appetite” level recipes here, but again this is FANCY and INCREDIBLE yassa. Yassa is probably my favorite dish in The Gambs, definitely something I’ll bring back into the states and eat. At the end of the day, it’s chicken and onions over rice (If making it sound familiar makes you more likely to try it!)

Ingredients:

• 7 medium onions
• 4 cloves of garlic, with hearts removed*
• 3 limes, the juice of
• apple vinegar
• black pepper
• 1 hot pepper
• 1 green bell pepper
• 2 cubes Maggi
• chopped veggies: carrots, peas and white thing…. it reminds me of Jicama, but I can’t place it, and no one knows its English name
• Mustard
• Rice
• Chicken

Directions:

Chicken: clean the chicken, wash with 1 tbsp salt and 1 splash of lime. Rub off the skin, cut into pieces, and score the meet.

In your mortar and pestle, mash:

• 1 cube magi
• head and seeds of the green bell pepper
• 2 cloves of garlic
• 1 tsp black pepper
• 1.2 onion, chopped

Add the mixture to the bowl, as well as the following:

• 3 limes, juiced.
• 2 tbsp apple vinegar
• Black pepper
• 1 cube magi
• ½ hot pepper (without seeds)
• 2 tbsp mustard

Let all of this magic marinate for 15-20 minutes. It should smell incredible, that’s how you know you did it right. After the chicken is finished marinating, place the chicken pieces and all of the sauce in a pan with a lid to “steam” it. The water and juices in the seasoning should be enough to cook it, and when the chicken is cooked through, it’s ready. This is how we steamed it, but I’m sure on a normal stove, you can figure out an appropriate temperature!

We then grilled it a little on each side to get that grill flavor.

Onions: Slice 6.5 onions in lengths. 

In Mortar and pestle, mash:

• ½ hot pepper
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1/3 of green bell pepper

Add this to the onions, as well as:

• 3 tbsp Mustard
• 2 tsp black pepper
• 3 tbsp Apple Vinegar

Mix with the onions, then sauté the onions in a lot of oil. When they’re softened, add the chicken and sauce to the onions, with ½ cup water. Stir and cook until water has cooked off.

Rice:

Boil enough water to cook your rice, and throw your chopped veggies, the carrots, peas and well, white stuff (apparently, this is optional) to cook. Once the water is boiling, steam the rice for 5 minutes, then add the rice to the water to cook. Let’s admit it: you’re not going to cook your rice like this in America, but it’s a complicated feat here in the Gambia. In America these directions will read: “Use rice cooker.”

Steaming the rice, over the boiling water. Notice the fabric between the pot and the steamer.

Serve the rice, and cover with chicken and onions, with an extra scoop of sauce. Then proceed to lick the bowl of sauce, no one will judge you!

*As she was cutting the garlic, Mbosse told me that Muslims should not eat the hearts, as they make your breath too smelly. As you pray, the angels who are listening will not like the smell of your breath; therefore it is advised to cut the hearts out.

**Mbosse kept calling this “Effo’s Yassa” so I’ll claim it as mine. I loooovve Yassa, so much I want to marry it.