#40 - Cote D'Ivoire

I have to admit that I was not excited to be doing another African meal. The chicken and peanut combination is not my favourite and has been a bit too common, especially lately. However, the Ivory Coast offered a couple of different options! My first choice was a traditional fish dish, but it called for Nile Perch, which unsurprisingly wasn't available in Victoria, and the alternatives proved to be cost prohibitive (ironic given that 46% of the population of Cote D'Ivoire live under the poverty line). So instead we made Kedjenou, which is a chicken stew.

As Andrew put it, this was another meal that can be classified as "meh". Despite the fact that there was a hot pepper and lots of other seasonings in the pot with the chicken, it was actually pretty bland. Kedjenou is meant to be served with Attieke, which is a form of fermented cassava, but we couldn't get our hands on any. Attieke is described as having a texture similar to quinoa with a flavour similar to rice so we decided to go with rice as a substitute. So yes, in the end which this didn't feature peanut, this was another chicken and rice dish! I've gotta admit, we've been at this for almost a year and there are certain themes emerging that I'm less than thrilled with. The chicken and rice redundancy is one of those.