Nothing strikes better than visiting a place and enjoying your favorite meal after an exhaustive day. All countries have their cuisines and signature dishes. Kenya is well known for the uniquely prepared barbecue popularly known as nyama choma. So what is this?
What is Nyama Choma
Nyama Choma is a version of barbecue or roasted meat that is prepared on an outdoor grill. A firewood or charcoal grill is the best option since there is a particular wood that you can use to flavor the meat and expel the smoke. The best meat for nyama choma is either beef or goat meat. People prefer the latter because goat meat is tender and it cooks faster.
The type of meat matters a lot when preparing nyama choma since it’ll significantly affect the preparation and the time it’ll take to complete cooking. There are different variations of preparing nyama choma, and the taste will tell. This dish came from the Maasai community, and it was prepared in various ceremonies where they had to slaughter either a goat or cow.
How to Prepare Nyama Choma
As mentioned earlier, there are varieties of approaches to take for preparing nyama choma. In this post, we will consider the natural way, so you don’t have to be worried if you don’t own a smoker. However, there are some essentials that you should have to make the process smooth. These tools include
- A grill
- Barbecue sauce (optional)
- Grill tongs
- Aluminum foil
- Salt
- Knife
The procedure for roasting the meat involves
- Butcher the meat to sections that you can quickly grill. Some prefer placing the whole piece, while others prefer putting in parts since the different muscles cook differently.
- Light the fire. Place charcoal or firewood on your grill and light the fire until it burns evenly.
- Season the meat with salt all over, especially if it is wet.
- Place the meat to dry the fats. Place the meat above the direct fire to dry the fats and any fluids that fresh meat has. (some people slaughter and leave the meat overnight for it to dry, which is another approach to avoid this step).
- Lift the grill base further from the fire and let the meat cook slowly to get to the innermost muscles. Keep on turning the meat using the grill tongs for it to cook evenly.
- When the meat begins to look like it’s burning, distort the bones on the joints, cover each piece with aluminum foil, and place them back on the grill. This is for deep tissue cooking.
- (optional) After tasting the meat (which is part of the cooking process) and confirmed that it’s almost done, you can spread the barbecue sauce and place it back on the live fire.
- Best served with kachumbari and ugali.
Where to Try the Best Nyama Choma in Nairobi
There are different places recognized for their excellent nyama choma, and customers can get enough of every chunk served to them. Some of the best nyama choma restaurants in Nairobi include
- Olepolos in Kiserian, Nairobi
- Road House Grill – Dennis Pritt
- Jiweke Tavern
- Club Sidai Oleng
- Chomazone Restaurant
- Njuguna’s Place
- KMP Nyama Choma
- Baba Nyama Choma
Conclusion
The fascinating thing about enjoying nyama choma is that it is done outdoors. So you can get a good spot to enjoy some relaxing music and a bottle or two of your favorite beer to calm your nerves. This dish is best enjoyed with a couple of friends around as you share words or laughter. It is a compiled meal to be enjoyed with family on a takeout weekend.
Have you tried nyama choma? Where did you enjoy the ribs or thighs from? Leave a review.
