Healthy, simple and delicious pressure cooker lemongrass chicken stew served with the easiest gluten free dumplings ever – fufu dumplings!
Preparation time: 10 minutes (to chop the vegetables) + 5-10 mins (for the dumplings)
Cooking time: 30 mins (or more if using a normal sauce pan instead)
Serves: 4-5
Ingredients
- 700g chicken thighs (on the bone)
- 2 onions
- 2-3 carrots
- 2 large potatoes
- 4-5 lemongrass stalks
- 5-6 garlic cloves
- Chicken stock (I used 2 Kallo stock cubes + 1L water)
- 1 Tbsp fish sauce (I use Squid Thai fish sauce)
- 1 tsp rice vinegar
- 1/2 tsp cayenne pepper (or to taste)
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp onion powder
- 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
- Salt
- Black pepper
- Olive oil (or cooking oil of your choice)
- 2 Tbsp cornflour
Directions
- Remove the skin from the chicken thighs (if applicable), finely chop the lemongrass and garlic and then cut the onions, carrots and potatoes into chunks.
- Pan fry the lemongrass on medium/low heat in a bit of olive oil.
- After a couple of minutes, add the onion and garlic and keep on cooking for another 2 minutes.
- Add the carrots and cook for another minute.
- Add the chicken and fry until the outer layer is sealed.
- Then add the rest of the ingredients and bring to a boil, stirring to make sure the stock cubes dissolve.
- Cook in a pressure cooker for 30 mins.
- Note: if using a normal sauce pan, keep an eye on the stew to make sure that the liquid doesn’t completely evaporate. Add a bit of water on and off if necessary and bear in mind that it will need to be cooked much longer.
- Once the lemongrass chicken stew is cooked, that all the pressure has been released and the lid can come off, you should be left with a stew of this consistency (if not, cook with the lid off until excess liquid evaporates):
- Optional: at this point feel free to remove the bones if you want.
- Thicken the stew with cornflour: mix 2 tablespoons of cornflour with a bit of cold water in a small pot until you have a runny paste. Turn the heat on low, add the paste to the stew and stir for a few minutes until it thickens up.
For the fufu dumplings, all you need is fufu flour (as seen below) and water!
For those of you who are not familiar with fufu, it’s such a great naturally gluten free food, commonly eaten in many parts of Africa and also the Caribbean. It’s generally made from cassava and/or plantain flour, but always check the ingredients just in case. Apparently it can sometimes contain other flours, like wheat semolina, but I’ve never seen that myself so I think it’s quite rare!
You can usually find it in the world food section of mainstream supermarkets, in markets and in many ethnic corner shops (particularly those selling african and caribbean foods).
On top of being yummy, they’re incredibly quick and easy to make. They don’t require any cooking other than the addition of boiling water!
Direction
- Add fufu flour into a bowl.
- Add boiling water gradually, stirring with a spoon, until you reach a dumpling like consistency.
- Wet your hands, shake off excess water and knead the dough with your hands for a couple of minutes until you get a dough that looks like this:
- Divide the dough into several portions and then shape into dumplings balls.
- Serve!
Enjoy!
