African Chicken / Macanese Curry Chicken

African chicken (also called Macanese curry chicken) is the signature dish of Macanese cuisine, in which chicken is marinated in coconut milk, curry, turmeric, olive oil, onion, garlic and bay leaves and then baked to a golden finish with a thick, mellow sauce where coconut and curry notes mingle, the meat tender and the gravy rich.

African chicken is said to descend from curry recipes Portuguese colonisers brought from Africa (Mozambique) via Goa in India, then adapted by Macanese families in Macau with coconut milk and Mediterranean spices into a cuisine all its own, carrying the memory of the spice trade of the Age of Discovery.

Usually served in a clay dish with its sauce, it is eaten with steamed rice or Portuguese bread, and mopping up the fragrant curry-coconut sauce with bread is the authentic way; it is most often a main course at dinner.

The golden sauce where coconut, curry and olive oil meet, and the unmistakable East-meets-West character of Macanese cuisine, are the irreplaceable marks of African chicken.