Review: Amma’s Kitchen Serves Up West African Food for Good Causes

Step into Amma’s Kitchen in Hydes in Northern Baltimore County, and you’re immediately enveloped by aromatic cooking smells, apple-red walls flecked with gold, and a cheerful proprietor welcoming you.

It’s not a typical storefront restaurant. Mavis Sackey, or Pastor Mavis Sackey as she prefers, is the head chef, turning out a menu that concentrates on the African food she grew up eating in Ghana and a handful of Caribbean and American dishes. The tiny eatery is staffed by volunteers, and proceeds go toward providing feminine hygiene products to girls in rural Africa and to other projects supported by Above the Call Ministries, founded by Sackey.

Standing in the restaurant’s open kitchen, Sackey was on another mission recently. She was developing a sweet-potato soup. Her secret ingredient: vanilla. The golden brew was thick but not too sweet, capturing the flavor of the cooked root vegetable.

The cooking prep here is rustic, with an emphasis on slow-cooked stews and fall off-the-bone meats. Just about everything is served with rice because, as Sackey points out, it’s used as a staple around the world. She relies on garlic, onions, turmeric, Scotch bonnet chile peppers, and warm Indian spices like cumin and coriander to flavor her various dishes.

We were soon feasting on ginger chicken along with jollof rice, a traditional West African preparation. We savored the hunks of succulent dark meat in a sesame-ginger sauce flecked with parsley that mingled with the tomatoey red rice.

While the restaurant’s ambiance is casual, the food is served on pretty, white plates rimmed in gold along with gold flatware. Sackey has incorporated the colors of the Ghanian flag (red, gold, and green with a black star) into her décor, and her food pops on the bare red tables.

The curry goat (you can also get it with chicken) was a success, served with coconut-milk rice and beans. But be prepared for bones as you dig into the tender meat and zingy sauce. The fried, glazed plantains provided a calming foil to the spiciness.

A dish that gave us pause was the peanut-butter soup, whose captivating broth featured its namesake ingredient, various spices, and fresh tomatoes. We chose chicken as our protein, only to find that meat had not been deboned. The soup was delicious, but we had to slurp carefully around small bone remnants. When we asked Sackey about the soup, she explained that it is a standard African technique to cook with whole chicken pieces.

“When people come in, we say, if you’re here for the experience, you should expect it to be made in a way that is authentically true to the country,” she says.

For those not seeking authenticity, Sackey also whips up platters like spaghetti and meatballs, shrimp Alfredo, and barbecue wings for her customers. While there were no puff puffs—West African deep-fried dough balls—the night we visited, Sackey had made a German chocolate cake, a great finish to our meal.

“I have no culinary experience, just a raw passion for cooking,” she says. “Food is really good when it’s cooked from the heart and soul.”

AMMA’S KITCHEN: 12600 Harford Road, Hydes, 410-510-7113. HOURS: Mon.-Sat. 11 a.m.-8 p.m. PRICES: Salads and veggies: $6-13; soups: $15-19; entrees: $14-20; desserts: $4-6. AMBIANCE: cozy cafe.