National Dish · Palm-Nut Stew

Poulet à la Moambe (Chicken in Palm Nut Sauce)

Photo: Brigade Piron / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

Moambe isn't a spice blend — it's the pounded pulp of the same red palm fruit crushed across Central Africa for cooking oil, simmered down into the sauce that gives the dish its name.

Chicken pieces are browned, then slow-simmered in a thick sauce made from pounded red palm nut pulp, tomato, garlic and chili until the meat is tender and the sauce turns deep orange. Malewa canteens across Kinshasa neighborhoods like Matonge and Bandalungwa serve it over rice with a side of pondu.

Why it's made this way: The dish traveled along Congo and Angola's Atlantic coast trade routes, where the Portuguese term for palm-oil cooking, 'moamba', took hold — it's now considered a national dish of both Congos and Angola alike.

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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.