Kedjenou

I can get adventurous in my cuisine. I recently added a character who is French of Ivory Coast origins to my fictional universe and thought to give Ivory Coast cuisine a try.

Kedjenou is a chicken vegetable stew.

I found many recipes, all similar, like this one: http://africanbites.com/?p=1560

But of course, following a recipe is not my way so this is what I did based on what I had in hand:

In my crockpot, on high

- two cloves garlic thinly sliced

- a dollop of extra virgin olive oil

- generous amounts of paprika (2 tablespoons?)

- about 2 teaspoons ginger 

- 3 small tomatoes diced

- about 1/2 cup sliced jalapeños

- about 3/4 cup black olives

Stir that nicely so it blends and gets aromatic.

To that base I added my vegetables

- about 8 ounces carrots

- one crown broccoli chopped into bite size florets

Stir to coat.

Plop 2 frozen chicken thighs on top of that. 

Sprinkle with more paprika and ginger. I covered and plan to cook on high for seven hours. I don't intend to stir or disturb it so the chicken juices infuse into the vegetables and make a stew.

It looks and smells good. Hubby says he added about six hours of water...

Individual plates with rice:

The verdict:

I think it's nicely seasoned and just spicy enough. The child isn't complaining that it's too spicy. Very yummy and comforting for a winter night.