National Dishes of the World

EN PL

Amiwo
Photo: Adoscam, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish

Amiwo

A red paste of maize flour cooked in a tomato and chicken broth, served with pieces of chicken.

Eaten in: Benin

Prep
20 min
Cooking
1 h 10 min
Total
1 h 30 min
Servings
4

Jump to recipe

About the dish

Amiwo is a Beninese maize paste which, unlike the everyday white paste, is cooked not in water but in a rich broth of tomatoes, onion, garlic and chicken. This gives it an orange-red colour and a full, savoury flavour. It is served in mounds with the chicken from the broth, often fried, and a relish of tomatoes, onion and hot pepper. It is a dish for Sundays, family celebrations and holidays, associated especially with the south of the country.

Main ingredients

  • maize flour
  • chicken
  • tomatoes
  • tomato paste
  • onion
  • garlic
  • chilli

Benin: Also called pâte rouge, “red paste”; a festive dish of Fon cooking.

Recipe

Amiwo

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/amiwo

Ingredients

4 servings

4 servings

Method

  1. Rub the chicken with salt, pepper and half the blended garlic and ginger, cover with 1.2 l water and simmer for 30 minutes; lift out the meat and keep the broth.

  2. Blend the tomatoes with one onion, the rest of the garlic and the chilli.

  3. Soften the second onion, chopped, in the oil, add the tomato paste and fry for 3 minutes, then add the blended tomatoes and simmer for 15 minutes.

  4. Fry the chicken until golden or add it to the sauce and simmer for another 10 minutes, then lift it out.

  5. Pour 1 l of the broth into the sauce, add the stock cube and bring to the boil; ladle out a cupful of the liquid.

  6. Pour in the flour in a thin stream, stirring hard all the time with a wooden spoon, until you have a thick, smooth paste; cook over low heat for 10 minutes, adding the reserved liquid if needed.

  7. Shape the paste into mounds with a wet bowl and serve with the chicken and a tomato and onion relish.

From the same kitchen