As I’ve mentioned many times before, we eat a lot of chicken in this house. So when I have an opportunity to make a chicken dish that is simple, but not the same as what we have each week, I jump at the opportunity. Bone-in chicken breasts is one of my favorite ways to make chicken but save from going to a butcher, I find it hard to find JUST bone-in chicken breasts in the store. We don’t love the legs or wings, that are so often included in griller packs. But last week I found that Whole Foods sells packs of 2 bone-in breasts. I realize this is an incredibly boring story BUT as someone who really enjoys going grocery shopping, this is a great find in my book!

So what to do with this great find? Make yet another African chicken dish with rice. I chose to make Muamba Chicken hailing from Angola. The flavors were similar to other chicken & rice stews from this region of the world but while I failed a bit on the “stew” consistency, the end result was a light, flavorful sauce with vegetables including tomatoes, onion, butternut squash and okra. This sauce had a little heat (thanks to the pierced hot pepper that I left in the stew while it cooked). The chicken had a bit of a spice rub that I worked in to the meat below the skin and cooked perfectly per the instructions.

Recipe I used: https://www.africanbites.com/muamba-chickenmuamba-de-galinha/

Overall Level of Effort: 2

Skill Level: Beginner

Would Make it Again? No

Additional Notes: Two quick notes on this. 1) I indicated that I wouldn’t make it again simply because it didn’t jump out at me like some of the other chicken recipes I’ve made in the past year. Not that it wasn’t good, it just wasn’t special enough. 2) I omitted palm oil from this. This ingredient seems to be difficult and a bit hard to find, considering some of the controversy related to its production. And the information online is all over the place regarding health benefits but then also some concerns for heart health. Given how little is needed for the recipe, I just elected to omit. Maybe that had an impact on the but overall I think it ended up just fine.