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Suya (also known as yaji) is a Nigerian spice blend based on peanuts that is an important part of Hausa meat cookery. Typically strips of meat are marinated in suya, threaded on skewers and cooked over a barbecue. A number of native spices are used in traditional suya, including Ashanti peppers (a relative of black pepper) and Calabash nutmeg. As these are not commonly available, I’ve simplified the spice blend here to omit them. Last Christmas there were not turkeys in South Africa due to COVID, so we had suya poussin (baby chickens) instead. Here the suya spice blend is mixed with butter as a spice rub and the fowl is finished with both a stuffing and topping of peanut crumble. Each poussin is enough for one person and you can use any leftover suya as a stuffing. I like my suya hot, so I add dried and ground hot chillies, but this is optional.
Prep time 20 mins/Cook time 50 mins/Serves 4
Ingredients:
4 poussin
½ shallot, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped2⅔ tbsp (10g) parsley leaves, finely chopped
For the marinade
40g salted roast peanuts1 tsp ground ginger2¼ tsp smoked paprika2½ tsp garlic granules½ tsp cracked black pepper1 tsp dried green peppercorns, coarsely ground in a mortar¾ tsp ground cayenne pepper
½ tsp ground Scotch bonnet (or habanero) chillies80g unsalted butter, at room temperature1 lemon, zest finely grated, to get 1 tsp, then juiced, to get 1½ tbspFine sea salt
For the peanut crumble
100g salted roast peanuts¼ tsp smoked paprika½ tsp garlic granules¾ tsp ground cayenne¾ tsp caster sugar
Method:
Heat the oven to 220°C (200°C fan)/425°F/gas mark 7.
First make the marinade. Put the first seven ingredients in a food processor and pulse until the nuts have broken down to the size of couscous grains. Add the butter, lemon zest and juice, and a teaspoon of sea salt, then pulse until well mixed. Reserve 8 tbsp of this mixture then set the remainder aside
Take the poussin and liberally rub 2 tbsp the spiced butter all over the inside and outside of each one.
Meanwhile, put all the peanut crumble ingredients in the large bowl of a food processor with a quarter-teaspoon of salt, pulse until the nuts are the size of couscous grains, then tip into a bowl. Reserve 12 tbsp of this mixture as a garnish then mix the remainder with the left-over spice butter, onions, garlic and parsley. Use this mixture to stuff the poussin.
Set the poussin on a rack in a roasting tin, transfer to the oven and roast for 30 minutes. At this point scatter the reserved peanut crumb over the four birds and return to the oven to roast for about 15 minutes more.
At the end of this time, remove the birds and allow to rest for 5 minutes before serving. I usually serve this with couscous and a tomato, cucumber and feta salad.
