If you’re already familiar with this Senegalese favourite, you don’t need me to convince you of its charms. Indeed, so good is it that, though the dish is native to the southern region of Casamance, it’s popular on menus as far afield as neighbouring Gambia. If poulet yassa is new to you, however, you have a real treat in store: a braised dish of chicken marinated in sweet onions, tangy citrus and warm chilli, it tastes, as Lerato Umah-Shaylor puts it so beautifully, like “sunshine on a plate” – and certainly, as my parents observed when I introduced them to it, far more than the sum of its parts. Simple ingredients, complex flavours – and a guaranteed crowdpleaser.
