Skip to main content
Main

Chikanda

A Zambian dish made from boiled orchid tubers, groundnuts, rice, and spices formed into sausage shapes.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 11 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Onion and garlic match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 29,058 recipes. Both carry furaneol, which smells caramel, strawberry. The science ↓

Chikanda

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the roots and groundnuts

  1. Bring 2 cups of water to a boil.

  2. Add the dried and ground chikanda roots to the boiling water and boil for about 30 minutes to soften the roots.

  3. Toast the groundnuts in a dry pan over medium heat until slightly browned and aromatic, then grind the roasted groundnuts into a fine powder.

  4. Add ½ cup of water to the groundnuts and blend to form a smooth paste.

  5. Blend the cooked rice until it becomes a smooth paste.

Shape the chikanda

  1. Mix the ground chikanda, groundnut paste, and rice paste in a large bowl.

  2. Add the chopped onion, minced garlic, and chopped hot pepper (if using) and mix well.

  3. Season the mixture with ground cayenne pepper, ground cumin, and salt to taste.

  4. Take a handful of the mixture and roll it into a sausage shape using your hands, repeating until all mixture is used to form several chikanda sausages.

Dry and serve

  1. Place the sausages on a clean surface or plate and allow them to dry and firm up for about 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Once the sausages have dried and firmed up, they are ready to be served.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

442Calories
14 gProtein
16 gFat
65 gCarbs

Counts 9 of 11 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 9 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Rice1 cup cooked (158g) white206
Peanut1 oz (28g)161
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Cumin1 tsp ground (2.1g)8
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Cayenne1 tsp (1.8g)6
Garlic1 clove (3g)4
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Waternot in our table0
Orchidnot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together29,058 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

  2. Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,082 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,306 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Peanut + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together670 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

  5. Peanut + garlictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together877 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-ethyl-2,5-dimethylpyrazine (roasted, nutty).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Groundnuts
Provide fat, protein and a toasted, nutty flavour that gives the mixture body.
Dried chikanda roots
Provide the starchy, gelling base that binds the mixture into a shapeable dough.
Rice
Adds starch and smoothness that helps the mixture hold together and firm up.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and moisture that deepens the savoury base.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows with the other seasonings.

The step that matters

Drying the sausages. The shaped sausages must dry and firm up for several hours; rolling or handling too early can leave them soft and prone to breaking, because the starches need time to set as moisture evaporates.

Swap the peanut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, onion, clove, garlic, pepper, cumin):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peanutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, onion, clove, garlic, pepper, cumin. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes