Cameroon – Chicken Secret

by Wirba Brice Divine Ransinyuy

Chicken secret is a local cuisine that is being prepared during gatherings of people or when people have been invited to a particular area for a particular reason. The reason it is being called as secret chicken is due to the fact that it brings happiness to people when eating and after eating it, this is why people often seek to understand and grab the secret hiding behind the preparation of this chicken since to cook it is not easy. What makes it not easy is due to the fact that, to have the desired taste, it demands so much mastery which is not given to anyone. Luckily, I belong to the group of those mastering the cooking of chicken secret as often being called. The taste of chicken secret is at the same time salty and sweat. It is a combination of both. Most people do not master its cooking due to the taste part, as they often add too much and much maggi making the food to lose its taste. Chicken secret is a local cuisine being prepared in Cameroon, precisely in the locality of Yoaunde.

Cooking method

The cooking method of chicken secret is that of stewing.

Cooking ingredients

• One quarter chicken
• Ripe or unripped plantains, it depends on your preferences
• Four fresh tomatoes
• One big onions
• Leeks
• A glove of garlics
• A stem of ginger
• A hand full of celeri
• A hand full of percil
• White pepper
• Green beans
• Red pepper
• One bay leaf
• Five carrots

Seasoning ingredients

• Groundnut oil
• Salt to taste
• Maggi to taste

Cooking process

1. Wash your chicken thoroughly
2. Cut into desired sizes
3. Using the bay leaf, boil chicken for about thirty minutes to forty minutes.
4. When the chicken is ready, remove the chicken from the stuck water.
5. Wash the tomatoes and slice
6. Wash the onions and slice
7. Wash the percil and the celeri and slice
8. Peel off the layers of the garlics and chop into small pieces
9. Peel off the layers of the ginger and chop into small pieces
10. Wash the leeks
11. Wash the carrots and cut into small pieces
12. Having gathered all these ingredients together, grind them all except the leeks which shall not be grinded.
13. Peel off the layers of the plantains and cut into very small sizes
14. After peeling them off and cutting into small sizes, place in a clean bowl of water.
15. Pour groundnut oil in a clean dry pot.
16. Wait for some seconds
17. When the oil steams small, throw in the grinded ingredients into the pot and stir.
18. Wait for a period of five minutes,
19. After five minutes, throw into the pot, the plantains and pour in a the stuck water from the chicken
20. Close your pot for a period of twenty minutes. This twenty minutes timeframe is the time for the plantains to become ready.
21. Waiting after twenty minutes, put the boiled chicken into the pot and do your seasoning putting in salt and maggi simultaneously. Mix them together before throwing into the pot because this is where the maggic is taking place. Then after this, throw into the pot the sliced carrots.
22. After this, throw in the leeks into the pot.
23. Pour into the pot, a half cup of the stuck water and allow your food to be completely ready.

Your chicken secret is ready, enjoy yourself.