Suma Chicken Dgna Wolof

Translation: my chicken speaks Wolof. (Wanna fight about it?)

It's been a long time since I sat down to the serious business of my mortar and pestal.

I lived in the West African nation of Senegal years ago, and returned with amazing (but time consuming) recipes featuring the famous flavors of peanut, onion and soured milk. For instance, my host family taught me to kill and pluck a chicken for traditional yassa poulet, a stew with oily mustard sauce, and to haggle for an entire fresh fish for blackening over an open flame, smothered with onions. 

The harder recipes, which I've never ventured to try? Rich goat maffe and the most famous of all, thiebu jen (pungent fish stew with vegetables).

Senegalese Fried Chicken at A Bistro, Brooklyn.

Everyone in New York knows that Harlem is ground zero for these amazing dishes. But, for a change of pace, I like A Bistro, a cozy Senegalese-inspired BYO spot off Brooklyn's Myrtle Avenue. It features Senegalese fried chicken (paired, at brunch, with spiced pancakes), fresh ginger juice and stewed kale or collards with every meal. 

The chef also likes to rotate in Asian flavors, eclectic burgers and other Senegalese novelties, like the braised lamb in peanut sauce we sampled last night.

The details: A Bistro, Carlton and Myrtle; A Bistro South, DeKalb and Vanderbilt.