How To Cook Khati-Khati

Chicken, vegetable and corn fufu - what a wonderful combination of flavours and tastes! This is the trio that makes up our meal for today.

Khati-khati is a meal originating for the North West Region of Cameroon and is eaten by a lot of Cameroonians these days.



Its preparation is simple yet technical as it is necessary to get the flavour of the Khat-khati right. That flavour that is not easy to resist!

I will be showing you in this recipe what brings about that par-ti-cu-lar smell from Khati-khati and how to achieve it.

Let's start cooking!

Ingredients

You need:

- Chicken

- Tomatoes 

- Onion

- Leeks

- Njama-njama (vegetable)

- Red oil/palm oil

- Seasoning 

How To Prepare Your Khati-khati

Select, wash and boil the Njama-njama.

As it boils, kill the chicken and clean it by removing the feathers. Put over fire flames to burn the leftover feathers and enhance the smell of the chicken. It can get a little burnt here and there but don't roast it!

Slice the rest of the ingredients - tomatoes, onions and leeks.

When the vegetable is ready, squeeze the excess water from it add salt and Maggi to the vegetables then heat some red oil in a pot. Add some salt then the tomatoes, onions and leeks to the hot oil and let it fry. Add the vegetable when the tomatoes are done and stir the mixture till even.

Add Maggi to the vegetable and mix with your hands before putting into the pot.

The chicken got a little over burnt!

Cut the chicken into smaller slices depending on how you prefer. Put some red oil in another pot heat it and fry the chicken. It's not advisable to bleach red oil as it is not very healthy. The oil here was left on the fire a little too long so, unfortunately, it bleached. But it wasn't intentional.

Let the chicken fry in the oil and cover the pot. This is the moment when the distinctive smell of Khati-khati is developed. Open the pot to stir from time to time and when you begin to perceive the smell of Khati-khati, it's ok to add the tomatoes.

Slice the tomatoes while the chicken is frying.

Add the tomatoes to the chicken and stir it.

Add some seasoning to your taste and take the pot off the fire when the chicken is ready.

Make some fufu to accompany our vegetable and Khati-khati and it is best served hot!

Hope you enjoy your meal!

NB: There are other ways of making the vegetable which is usualy refered to as 'contry style' whereby the vegetable is not fried but oil and seasoning is just added to it and it is cooked without it being fried.