Potatoes and Chicken Sauce
Overview
Chicken and potatoes cooked down together with onion, stock and warm spices into a single-pot sauce. It is South African home cooking of the plainest and most useful kind, and the seasoning is what identifies it. Knorrox stock cubes and peri-peri are both South African supermarket staples, and the combination, a stock cube, turmeric, garlic powder and a peri-peri kick, is a recognisable everyday shorthand in kitchens across the country. Nothing about it is ceremonial. It is a weeknight dish built around what is in the cupboard, filed by the source under breakfast, which is plausible enough in a household where a substantial early meal is normal. This page needs a warning that most do not. Its ingredient list omits the chicken and the potatoes, the two things the dish is named after, and also omits the stock, sage and basil that its method then tells you to use. It lists mayonnaise, which never appears again. The recipe below reconstructs the ingredient list from what the method actually requires, with quantities that are working estimates rather than anything the source provides. Brand names have been described generically, so the recipe works wherever it is cooked.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 1
Warm the oil in a large saucepan and cook the sliced onions over medium heat until softened.
- 2
Put in the chicken pieces and let them colour on both sides.
- 3
Tip in the potato chunks and pour over the stock. It should come most of the way up the ingredients rather than covering them.
- 4
Cover and cook over medium heat until the chicken is tender and the potatoes are soft, about 20 minutes, checking that nothing is catching on the base.
- 5
Season with the sage, basil, garlic powder, turmeric, peri-peri, all-purpose seasoning and salt, and cook uncovered for a few more minutes so the sauce reduces and thickens around the potatoes.
- 6
Taste, adjust the seasoning and serve hot.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from Lisias Johanna- Brown the chicken before the liquid goes in. It costs a few minutes and it is where the depth of the sauce comes from.
- Do not drown it. The potatoes release starch as they soften and that is what thickens the sauce, so keep the stock below the level of the ingredients.
- Cut the potatoes evenly so they cook at the same rate as the chicken.
- Peri-peri seasoning varies a lot in heat and salt between brands. Season towards the end rather than at the start.
- Thighs work better than breast here. They stay moist through a covered cook where breast dries out.
- It is good with rice, pap or bread, all of which will take the sauce.
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