The first time I ate chicken yassa felt like coming home. The Casamance’s iconic braise, featuring fork-tender meat and a sumptuous sauce sunk into a mound of rice, stirred in me a nostalgia for the pots of stewed chicken, gumbo, and red beans and rice that I grew up eating in the Atlanta suburbs. Many of the dish’s West African culinary traditions, such as simmering chicken in rich cooking liquid until it’s barely clinging to the bone and serving it with soft braised greens, parallel my own. And its principal flavors—caramelized onions, bright lemon and mustard, heady garlic—felt both familiar and special.
“It was tastes that I knew but used in a way that I had never tasted them used before,” said Dr. Jessica B. Harris, acclaimed culinary historian and author of books including High on the Hog: A Culinary Journey from Africa to America (2011), when we spoke about what drew each of us to the dish.
–Nafy Ba Flatley, chef/founder of Teranga
