Poulet roussi, or Scorched Chicken, is a classic creole dish that I discovered in this month's Martinique-themed Kitchen Trotter box. It uses a couple of ingredients from the box (India wood and dog sauce spices) but you could easily leave them out or replace them with store cupboard basics.
Poulet roussi (Scorched Chicken)
ingredients :
10g dog sauce spices (a mix of dried onion, garlic, parsley, chilli)
2 India wood (bois d'Inde) leaves
6 chicken legs
the juice of 1/2 lime
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
1 whole chilli
a sprig of thyme
4 sprigs of parsley
1tbsp tomato concentrate
2tbsp olive oil
1tbsp cassonade or soft brown sugar
salt and pepper
1 chicken stock cube/stock pot
Put the chicken in a bowl with the lime juice, dog sauce mix, salt, pepper and India wood. Mix and cover in clingfilm. Leave to marinate for a few hours.
Heat the oil in a large pan or wok then toss in the cassonade/brown sugar and heat, stirring, to create caramel.
Turn down the heat and add the chicken pieces to the pan.
Add the rest of the marinade, the tomato concentrate, onions, garlic, parsley and thyme and brown the chicken on all sides. Season with salt and pepper.
Add 200ml of chicken stock (or water and a stock cube) so that the liquid half covers the chicken. Toss in the whole chilli if using. (I left it out as the kids were eating the same as the grown ups.)
Cook for 20-30 minutes until the sauce has reduced by half and the chicken is cooked right through. Take out the chilli and adjust the seasoning. Serve with rice.
The recipe said that this tastes even nicer the next day. As we had leftovers, I tried it and the flavours do develop more and soak into the chicken more the next day.
If you fancy trying more Martinican cuisine, how about Mango Blancmange Crumble or Pork & Sweet Potato Colombo?
That sounds wonderfully flavourful!
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