Malawi : Nkhuku Ya Sabola (Spiced Chicken Curry) with Nsima

CLICK HERE FOR THE RECIPE I USED

Malawi is a very poor country and I did not find a wide variety of recipes from there online.

This one came up most often in my searches and the ingredients were easy to come by and the curry was not difficult to make. It was very good but, to be honest, it wasn't meant to be the star of the show it was intended to be a vehicle to try Nsima.

Nsima is a porridge made from corn flour that is a staple carbohydrate in the Malawian diet. It is an important food in their culture and something one must eat, if they want to "taste" Malawi. It is made from corn flour, water, and salt. (recipe below)

I ran into some difficulty finding "corn flour" locally but did some digging and watched some videos of people in Malawi making Nsima and ended up using masa to make the Nsima. There are a lot of recipes that suggested using finely ground corn meal but, in the videos, they used something that looked very much like flour or corn starch. Masa was the closest in appearance to what I saw in the videos and, as far as I can tell, it worked as intended!

Nsima was not difficult to make but does require patience and a lot of stirring. When it is done, it should be thick enough that you can form it into a ball-scoop shape that you then use to scoop up the curry and eat it. It smells very much like creamed corn when it is cooking and it tastes like cornmeal but with a much smoother texture.

The curry and nsima went together perfectly! I enjoyed the flavors and textures of this meal but did not take into consideration that the curry that got onto my fingertips while dipping the nsima into it would leave me with yellow fingertips. Dawn Platinum Powerwash helped somewhat but there's still a slightly yellow tint. Hopefully, it will wash off in my next shower. My fake fingernails which were orange before I ate this meal, now have a slight yellow to orange gradient thing going on. I don't hate it. 😄

Anyway, would I make this again?

Probably not.

While tasty, I don't think the leftover nsima will reheat well and the curry itself didn't really standout from other curries I've made in the past. I don't know that I would ever crave this particular meal though I did enjoy it this time. It was fun to try but I can't see it becoming part of my meal rotation.

Recipe for Nsima:

4 cups water

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 1/2 to 2 cups masa

Bring the water and salt to a boil over high heat. Add the masa and reduce the heat so that the mixture is simmering well but not boiling. Stir this constantly until the mixture reaches desired thickness. You may need to add additional masa for a firmer nsima.