Ghanaian · Starter
Chichinga
- Intermediate
- 30 min
- roughly 3 of 4 for cost
Leads with char used as punctuation, aromatics blooming from the first bite, fading in warm spice.
Ingredients
- 600 g beef topside, cut across the grain into 3 mm ribbons
- 80 g kulikuli (pressed groundnut cake), ground to a powder
- 2 tbsp ground dried chilli
- 1 tsp ground ginger
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 2 tsp salt
- 2 tbsp groundnut oil
- 1 onion and 2 tomatoes, sliced, to serve
Equipment
Grill
The skills inside
Grilling over live coalsResting meat & slicing against the grain
Allergen screen
Found: peanuts
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Thread the beef ribbons onto soaked skewers in a loose concertina so heat reaches both faces of every fold.
- Grind the kulikuli with the chilli, ginger, garlic, onion powder, cloves and salt to a dry sandy dust; keep it dry, with no oil worked in.
- Brush the meat with the groundnut oil, press half the dust into it and leave 15 minutes while the coals burn down to grey ash with no flame licking up. 15 min
- Grill close to the coals, turning every 30 seconds, until the edges frill and char in spots and the meat is only just firm; 4 to 6 minutes. 6 min
- Off the fire, shower on the remaining dust and serve with raw onion and tomato.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the techniques it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Resting meat & slicing against the grain 56 recipes
- It came off the heat BEFORE the target temperature, measured with a probe rather than by time, because carryover keeps driving the inside up after it is out.
- The probe went into the coldest likely part rather than the easiest one to reach: the reading that matters is the lowest one, not the first one.
- Rested for a time matched to its size, somewhere warm, and not cut into partway through to see how it is doing.
- The board is nearly dry when it is finally cut. A spreading pool means it was cut too early, and that liquid should have stayed inside.
- The grain was found and the knife went ACROSS it, so the fibres are cut short, and the blade was sharp enough that the slices hold together rather than tearing.
Where it goes wrong It was cut straight off the heat, usually because everything else was ready. The muscle is still contracted and the juice still driven to the centre, so it runs out onto the board; the meat is drier than it ever needed to be, and the flavour that left it is sitting in a puddle under the knife.
Grilling over live coals 77 recipes
- The fire was ready before the food was: coals evenly covered in grey ash with no flames licking through and no raw smoke coming off, and a hot zone and a cooler one both available.
- The grate was hot and clean when the food landed, and the food released cleanly from it when the time came to turn rather than tearing away.
- Marks are browned, not burnt: deep colour where the metal touched, with no carbon flaking off and no soot transferred onto the food.
- The interior reaches its target with a thin gradient, not charred outside and cold within, and not driven through by a flare-up.
- What comes off the fire smells of fire and food only: no raw wood smoke, no fuel, nothing acrid at the back of the nose.
Where it goes wrong It went on over live flames instead of settled coals, so the outside charred bitter in the flare-ups while the middle stayed cold, and everything on the plate tastes of soot.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Cabernet Sauvignon or Malbec
- Also Right
- Tempranillo (Rioja Reserva)
- From the Taps
- Amber ale
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water, make room
Tannin binds to seared protein and fat: each bite softens the wine, each sip resets the palate: the steakhouse equation.
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