Here we truly saved the best for last. It's farewell to Africa day! This was our last meal from Africa, by way of the Ivory Coast.
I decided to save the more elaborate meal for last, and it did not disappoint. For our second meal from Ivory Coast, I made choukouya, served with a hot pepper sauce, and alloco with another pepper sauce called pili pili.
Let's talk about the alloco recipe first. Alloco is what they call fried plantains. I've only once before tried to fry plantains, and that time was a disaster. (Too much oil, overly ripe plantains, not long enough on the pan, etc.) But we all learn from our mistakes, and this time I had a solid recipe to follow. I carefully followed the advice for picking out the right plantains: not too ripe / not too green. And my local grocery store has started carrying plantains so I didn't have to go far to find them, either.
I fried my plantains in peanut oil, in three separate batches. While I fried them, I also worked on the sauce de piment, or pili pili. I let the sauce sit on low for much longer than the recipe called for which didn't really hurt anything, it just let all the flavors mix together more deeply. I finished the plantains well before I even started the meat, so I set them in oven to stay warm while I headed outside to the grill.
Now, for the choukouya. Grilled lamb. From what I understand it is a common street food, which means I had pretty high expectations for it. And it was truly the main event of the evening - but admittedly there were many things that could have gone wrong, especially considering the recipe I used was in French. I had to try and brush off my college French to make sure that Google translate wasn't leading me astray...
Anyways I think I did a pretty good job. I set the lamb in a mustard marinade for several hours before putting it on the grill, and I used that time in between to not only fry the plantains, but to make another hot pepper sauce to serve with the meat. This sauce called for some truly hot scotch bonnet peppers, which I couldn't even find. But since we're not big fans of super spicy foods, I substituted habaneros and jalapenos for the peppers, and also used half of what the recipe called for. (And it was still pretty hot, so I sent it home with my spicy-loving sister.)
To cook the meat I first had to grill it until golden-brown. Then, I wrapped the lamb pieces in foil packets with the chopped bell peppers, chili peppers, and onions, and left it to cook on the grill LOW and SLOW. (Which was somewhat torturous because I was hungry and it smelled aMaZIng!)
The finished product. Très délicieux!
Our thoughts...
Younes was really impressed with this meal. He gave the alloco 8/10 stars, and the choukouya was a whopping 9/10 in his book. I asked for his rationale on that, because he also said the meal was "perfect," and so in that case I would expect a full 10/10. He answered that he's just leaving a bit of room for future dishes. Okay, fair. But he did say it was perfect, and that is HIGH praise!
Myself, I give the whole meal 10/10, A+, 5 gold stars. It was delicious. Even the hot pepper sauce complimented the grilled meat well enough that I didn't mind the little bit of heat. The fried plantains were not too sweet, and they were also complimented by the tomato and pepper flavor of the pili pili sauce. The only fault I might find is that paired together, the meal is very heavy - so be sure to wear your stretchy pants for this one. 😉
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