Mayo and chicken; the street food that has Congolese singing

Record ID: 1601037

  • Title: Mayo and chicken; the street food that has Congolese singing
  • Date: 12th February 2021
  • Summary: KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC CONGO (RECENT) (REUTERS) HERVE ILUNGA, STREET FOOD VENDOR, CHOPPING CHICKEN PREPARED WITH SPICES OFF THE GRILL TO MAKE 'POULET-MAYO' CHICKEN COVERED IN SPICES BEING GRILLED ON A HOTPLATE TOMATOES SPOON CHURNING MAYONNAISE IN A POT WOOD FIRE BURNING UNDER THE HOTPLATE ILUNGA'S FACE CHICKEN BEING MIXED AND TOSSED IN A BOWL
  • Embargoed: 26th February 2021 10:15
  • Keywords: Etyco Star chichen mayonnaise poulet mayo street food
  • Location: KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
  • City: KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
  • Country: Congo, Democratic Republic of the
  • Topics: Africa,Living/Lifestyle,Society/Social Issues
  • Reuters ID: LVA001DZC6UL3
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Grilled chicken pieces, a touch of spice, fresh vegetables, and several dollops of mayonnaise all cooked over a crackling wood fire.
    'Poulet Mayo' which means chicken mayo in French was created in 2018 and is now a favourite on Kinshasa's streets.
    It's so popular that Congolese musician Etyco Star released a song claiming that it can improve your dating life.
    Herve Ilunga is the 25-year-old cook at Jenny Barre street restaurant in Kinshasa's young and hip Bandalungwa neighbourhood.
    He claims to have invented Poulet Mayo three years ago whilst looking at ways of attracting more clients.
    "This is where 'poulet mayo' was invented, here on Avenue Lubumbashi in Bandal. Before we used to sell simple chickens and one day, with the friends I work with, we decided to try out a mixture of chicken and mayonnaise. We ate the very first chicken with mayonnaise that we prepared and thought it was a good idea. We named this dish 'Poulet Mayo' (Mayo-Chicken), which just means chicken made with mayonnaise. And we then started writing on the tables and on our t-shirts 'restaurant poulet-mayo'. Clients loved it and that is how they started talking about poulet-mayo throughout Kinshasa," he said.
    Ilunga says that to make the perfect Poulet Mayo, you first need to rub a whole chicken with spices and oil and dry it out on a hot plate or grill. The chicken is then chopped into small pieces.
    Onions, peppers, tomatoes, cabbage and a long list of other ingredients - including mushrooms - are added in before it's grilled again.
    The cook soon picks up the mixture with a piece of paper made out of milk powder, and mixes in the magic ingredient: mayonnaise. The meal is wrapped up in the paper which he puts back on the wood fired grill for a few minutes before serving.
    Recipes that are now available on the web say it takes around one hour and 15 minutes to cook Poulet Mayo at home.
    Kinshasa's residents don't mind waiting to eat what has become a regular evening or weekend meal to share with friends, washed down with few cold beers.
    Today it is sold all over Kinshasa though Avenue Lubumbashi in Badalungwa is reputed to still have the best ones.
    Poulet mayo fan and regular at Jenny Barre restaurant, Guylain Bolia, says the dish deserves to be elevated to the same status as the great world-wide classics.
    "Today we know about different dishes like the steak, the hamburger, the shawarma. Why not include the 'Poulet Mayo' in that list and make sure it is known around the whole world, just the same way as the foreign top dishes we eat here?" said Bolia.
    Ilunga says inventing 'Poulet Mayo' is one of the best things he has done so far for his street food business. One plate is priced at around 5 US dollars now.
    "Some days we can sell three boxes worth of chickens, and one box is 10 chickens so that means that per day we sell around three of these boxes so 30 chickens a day," he said.
    It started as one cook looking for ways to spice up the common grilled chicken and raise his bottomline.
    What he has ended up creating is a culinary must-have in Kinshasa, inspiration for at least one musician, and great content for countless online cooking blogs.
    (Benoit Nyemba, Yvonne Bell, Lisa Ntungicimpaye)
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
  • Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2021. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
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