West African Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew {Gluten-Free}
At the moment, food blogs (this one included) are all full of recipes for lovely warming soups and stews. That is because it is really cold outside. But for me the word stew generally conjures up the Sierra Leonean style stew which is has a lot less liquid than you would expect. It conjures up a base of spiced onions simmered with tomatoes and chilli with a minimal amount of liquid. This is the stew served with jollof rice, or on sundays and special occasions. I remember trying to cram in as much of my left over stew sandwiches as I could before heading off to school. 
When I decided I wanted to cook this for a recent celebration I spoke to one of my best friends. She is an amazing cook and OH is always angling for an invite to her house. Anyway I was discussing pureeing the vegetable for this so I could cut down the cooking time. But girl, she said to me, the stew is in the ‘onion slices’. I had to admit that she was right so no shortcuts.
The key to this stew is slicing the onions very thinly and cooking them slowly till they practically melt in your mouth. Much of the cooking involves just simmering the vegetables away. Please try this and serve with rice, plantains or bread. And don’t forget to leave a comment below to tell me what you think.
Looking for more savory stew recipes? Try this flavouful Meatball Jollof Stew.
Don't forget to tag #recipesfromapantry on Instagram or Twitter if you try West African Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew! It is really, really awesome for me when you make one of my recipes and I'd love to see it. You can also share it on my Facebook page. Please pin this recipe to Pinterest too! Thank you for reading Recipes from a Pantry.
West African Chicken and Sweet Potato Stew
Ingredients
- 400 g sweet potato peeled and chopped 14oz, 4 cups
- ½ tsp ground coriander cilantro
- ½ tsp ground ginger
- Salt
- 2 tbsp + 1 tsp oil
- 8 chicken thighs
- 2 jumbo cubes optional, see notes
- 5 onions finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves minced
- 2 peppers deseeded and finely chopped bell
- Scotch bonnet chilli chopped to taste optional
- 2 bay leaves
- 210 ml water 1 cup
- 400 g tin chopped tomato 14oz
Instructions
- Prep:
- Pre heat the oven to fan assisted 160C / 180C / 350F / gas 4.
- Season sweet potatoes with ½ tsp coriander, ½ tsp ginger, salt, pepper and 1 tsp oil and mix well.
- Season the chicken with 1 jumbo cube (or 1 tsp ground coriander, 1 tsp ground ginger and salt).
- Cook:
- Bake sweet potato in the oven for up to 30 mins till they are done. Make sure to stir them at least once during baking so that they cook evenly on all sides
- Heat the remaining oil in a non stick pan and fry the chicken pieces on medium heat till they are done. Remove them from the pan and set them aside
- In the same pan add in the onions, garlic, peppers, scotch bonnet and bay leaves and stir fry for a minute until fragrant.
- Then add in the water, cover and simmer for about 40 mins till the onions are soft stirring occasionally.
- Keep an eye on the water level and if it get gets too dry you might need to add in a few tbsp of water.
- Then add in chopped tomatoes and the other jumbo cube, bring to the boil and then cook on low heat for another 20 mins.
- Then add in the chicken and sweet potato and simmer uncovered for another 10 mins so the flavours blend together.
- Adjust seasoning and serve.
Notes
- You can substitute the scotch bonnet with chillies of you choice.
- Jumbo cubes (and maggi cubes) are stock cubes used to flavour food in West Africa. You normally find them in shops selling ethnic food. If you can't find one then replace the water with stock of your choice.
The kids love sweet potato. I love chicken. I think that we’re all going to enjoy this stew on one of our “world cook off” nights! Thanks.
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Wow, this stew looks delicious. I’m a bit nervous to use scotch bonnet chillies, after attempting a caribbean pot stew. My hands were burning and tingling for the whole night, no one warned me to wear gloves when cutting the chillies and no amount of lemon juice cleared the burn. But i will def try this dish
Tina, I use a fork and knife when cutting these up.
Hello Bintu,
This sounds so heartwarming and I can totally understand why you would want to cram in as much as you could . It’s a refreshing alternative to soups in the cold brrrr weather we have right now. I am so Indian in my tastes and always love the dash of chilli and yes anything with rice is so so morish !
Cheers!
M
I love your recipes Manjiri
This looks just the sort of food I love especially since it includes sweet potato – a favourite in my household and the healthiest of the potato varieties due to it being low glycaemic. Definitely getting this made over the holiday season.
Madeleine I am going to have to come check out your blog for some sweet potato recipes.
This one is bookmarked Bintu, it looks really, really tasty!
Janie x
One of my favs Janie.
this looks tasty and something I can make even with my poor skills
OMG Bintu! This is stunning. I want to make this right now. I have chicken thighs in the freezer and I now know what to do with them.
Thanks Marlene. It smells good when cooking and tastes even better. Let me know how it goes.
Stopping by to say Hi~ Thanks for the FB like:) Your recipes look wonderful! Can’t wait to try the pizza crust!! Now following on bloglovin, twitter, fb and goggle+ Stop by and visit me some time! Lynn H @ Turnips 2 Tangerines
Hi Bintu! Thank you so much for visiting my blog…Love your recipes! They look very tasty and reminds me of some of my homeland cuisine. Panama is a cosmopolitan country, home of different cultures so we get to enjoy the best dishes from all around the world. Now following in G+ Pinterest and Twitter…oh FB too from my personal page to make it count. Have a Beautiufl weekend!
Thanks Lizy,Looking forward to your recipes as well.
substituted the chicken with pork and it worked wonderfully. Thanks for the tip on the onions :). Will definitely be making this again it was amazing. Thanks
Hey Balonay,
Yes it does work rather well with pork too. Thanks for stopping by.
This sounds and looks lovely –
will be making it this weekend –
thanks for the recipe
🙂 Emma.
This looks so good. 🙂
Hi Pearlsa, your ginger drink totally reminds me of home.
This sounds delicious! Can’t wait to try it!
Hi Sheena, Thanks so much for dropping by. I hope you like it.
This looks amazing, I have almost all the ingredients on hand right now, I so have to try this!
It is totally worth it. Let me know how it goes.
sounds delish! 🙂
Hi Ang, it is delish. I hope you try it.