The roots of Macanese cuisine go back to the late 1400s. But one of its most popular dishes only dates from the 1940s. The Portuguese exploration of the world in the 15th century brought the discovery of new ingredients as fleets sailed from Europe, via South America, around Africa to Southeast Asia, and onwards to Macau and Japan. En route, the sailors and soldiers stuck to their native cuisine but added ingredients unearthed on their travels.
These men, it seems, were responsible for the dish that was to become African chicken, or galinha ? Africana. Macau Culinary Association president Raimund Pichlmaier recounts that the soldiers' curried chicken was refined in the 1940s by a chef called Americo Angelo, who combined spices from Angola and Mozambique with paprika, white wine, tomatoes and red bell peppers to create the dish's distinctive flavour.
Made buttery from garlic, sweet from peanut butter and simmered coconut, and spicy from paprika, African chicken now has many renditions. Angelo worked with a Chinese cook at the restaurant of a hotel called Pousada de Macau, from where the dish spread to the menu of most of the enclave's Macanese and Portuguese restaurants. It may not be quite as much of a staple as the salt cod dish bacalhau, but it is high on the list of Macanese favourites.
Pousada de Macau's Chinese cook left to work at the Solmar restaurant, which is still open today, taking the recipe with him. Angelo moved to a restaurant called Estoril and then the Hotel Lisboa, putting the dish on the menu at both establishments.
At the Lisboa, Angelo worked with Pichlmaier and a chef named Manuel Ferreira, who was coincidentally the grandson of the owners of Pousada de Macau. Pichlmaier describes Angelo as 'quiet, kind, hardworking and a hands-on chef'. Ferreira opened another restaurant that has become noted for its take on the dish, Restaurante Litoral, equally known for its baked duck rice and grilled cod.
In 1976, Raymond Vong opened Henri's Galley, a culinary institution famed for its version of African chicken. Vong says he acquired the recipe by hiring the chef from Solmar to moonlight for him.