You may know about Ukwa from the roasted version. It is a nutty snack commonly eaten in the Eastern part of Nigeria. I find that the roasted version is something of an acquired taste. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. I have known about Ukwa ever since my late teenage years and I never knew it could be eaten savoury. I just thought like groundnut, it is roasted from raw and eaten. of course now I know you cna cook with raw groundnuts, one of my favourite soups, groundnut soup is made by groudning raw groundnuts with uziza seeds. If you haven’t tried it yet, I implore you to do, you will be pleasantly surprised. Recipe can be found HERE. In place of raw groundnuts, you cna make this with unsweetened organic peanut butter.

Now, back to Ukwa. I was at a friend’s house where I was served the roasted version and her mum told me, it could also be made into a pottage using the raw nuts, just the way you cook beans. She gave me a quick recipe and I was really intrigued. My mum was coming and I made sure she brought some for raw Ukwa for me. I made this with quite a bit of trepidation, but I must say, I enjoyed the end results. Savoury Ukwa will definitely be making a comeback in my kitchen. Think of beans, and just replace with the raw Ukwa. I will be uploading a picture of the raw Ukwa this evening. Getting bored of beans, introduce variety into your diet by making Ukwa. Italso has many nutritional benefits

You will need

2 – 3 cups of Ukwa – depending on how many people you are feeding

1 cup fo shredded smoked fish

Palm oil

Salt

Seasoning cubes

2 – 3 pieces of ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habenro epper

How To

I will like to start by saying, I wasn’t warned that ukwa takes forever to cook. I will be boiling it in a pressure pot from hencefort.

1. Rinse the Ukwa, add water to the pot to cook it.

then you add shredded smoked fish. Dooney’s Kitchen tip: the idea to boil with shredded smoked fish came from the fact that i assumed ukwa would taste bland when boiled on its own, and I wanted to amp up the flavour by using smoked fish

2. Place the pot on high heat and cook the ukwa softens, jsut like you would with beans. I can’t remember how long this took, I only remember that for the amount I was making, it did not cook as fast as I thought.

3. Once it has softened sufficiently, check the water level. If it has absorbed all the water, add a little more, just enough to top it, then add fresh pepper, palm oil, salt and 1 seasoning cube. Stir and just let it cook, till the palm oil and pepper mesh with the flavour of the Ukwa and the pale cream colour has changed to a brown shade of yellow. You may wish to mash it slightly with a wooden spoon to make it more creamy like beans pottage.

………………….and that’s your Ukwa. The aroma and the taste, especially with the smoked fish is just amazing. If you don’t have smoked fish, you can use crayfish.

 You can go fancy by serving it in a cored out red or green bell pepper.

I am journeying down to Rivers State, bringing you a unique and distinctive delicacy from that part of Nigeria. I think the local lingua name for this soup is Odu Fulo or Buru Fulo (corrections are welcome). I had eaten this soup before at a restaurant in Abuja, but couldn’t remember the name. Last year, I was discussing with the members of So You Think You Can Cook (shout out to the group owner Bola Coker) on Facebook, if I could make soup using cocoyam as a thickener without adding any vegetables, as I seem to really enjoy the taste of cocoyam paste in soup.  The comments I got back were varied, I even thought this could be something new that could be introduced in Nigerian food, until someone left a comment and said ‘oh Dunni, that already exists’.

It is called Native soup eaten by the people of Rivers Statue using fish and seafood. Off to do some research, and on seeing pictures, I realised I had eaten it before. My good friend Chiby Iroegbu is from Rivers State, Ikwerre to be precise, making her the easiest person to go to for an authentic recipe. I said to her, ‘Chiby, give me the recipe, tell me how your mum made it‘ and she gladly obliged. Sadly Chiby’s mum is no longer with us and I hope I did her memory justice. This post is dedicated to the late Mrs Etekochay.

Rivers state being a coastal region, I can understand why this soup is made with so much fish and seafood. A bountiful plate I must say. In my research, I came across some recipes using meat, which Chiby easily discounted as un-authentic. She gave me a possible list of fish and seafood to use. On the list were a fleshy fish like Tilapia or Croaker. If you live abroad, I guess Sea bass, Red bream or even Grouper will work. For seafood she advised to use mussels, clams (ngolo), periwinkles (isam), prawns, shrimps and possibly crabs, but her mum didn’t use crabs. Nevertheless, in the spirit of experimentation, I intend to make this soup using an assortment of meats, just because I loved it so much. I can decide to call it Dunni’s Meaty Cocoyam soup or something.

Fresh Ingredients

Fresh Tilapia

Mussels and Clams (ngolo)

Big Shrimps, periwinkle, prawns

You will need

Tilapia (or any type of fish you have)
Mussels
Ngolo (clams)
Prawns
Large Shrimps
Periwinkles
Crayfish
3 pieces of Cocoyam - to be used as a thickener
Palm Oil
Fresh pepper - ata rodo or chilli
Chopped red onion - 1/4 of an onion
Salt
Seasoning cubes
Scent Leaf - basil or efinrin

I left out Stockfish deliberately. Stockfish is a powerhouse of smoky fish flavour that is quite pungent and it will overpower the delicate fresh fish and seafood flavour.

How To

Prep your ingredients i.e. put the cocoyam to boil (leave the skin on) till it can be pierced through easily with a fork. Cut the fish into 3 or 4 pieces, clean the seafood and set aside. Chop the red onion and roughly blend 2 – 3 pieces of fresh ata rodo (scotch bonnet/habanero pepper). Roughly blend the crayfish.

1. Heat up the palm oil and sauté the chopped onion.

Lower the heat, then you add the fish and let it fry slightly.

After which you add fresh pepper, and sprinkle in seasoning cubes.

In a few minutes roughly 2 – 3, you will notice liquid in the pan from the fish.

2. Add a little more water, just about enough to cook the fish, cover the pan and let it cook. Remember to still keep the heat on low, to preserve the delicate flavour of the fish and seafood.

3. To keep the fish intact, carefully take it out and then add the medley of seafood. Leave to cook until the prawns and shrimp turn a lovely shade of pink, and the mussels and clams have opened. This is a sign that they have cooked.

Again, like the fish take it out to prevent over cooking. Nothing is more terrible than overcooked seafood. A culinary injustice.

4. Now you are left with this rich fish stock, that smells amazing. The cocoyams should have completely cooked by now, peel the skin off

and pound to a smooth paste.

5. Add it to the fish stock in lumps, which will dissolve completely into the stock to thicken it. Then add the crayfish, stir and taste for salt and seasoning. Re-adjust if necessary, I doubt you will need to. When it has sufficiently thickened, it would have turned a light shade of orange.

then re-introduce the cooked fish and seafood, shake the pot in a circular motion a few times to redistribute.

6. Finish off by adding freshly chopped scent leaf. Chiby said you can also use a bitter leaf, Utazi or Uziza. Any choice of leaves you use should only serve as an accent to the soup, just a hint of it, so don’t go overboard. Sprinkle it in and shake the pot. Leave to cook for another 2 minutes or so, and you are done.

……………………and that’s your native soup done.

A closer shot of the pot, and you will see that it is a light and fluid soup (not watery like stew though) so go easy on the cocoyam paste so you don’t end up with a thick glob.

Enjoy Your Native Soup

Serve with your choice of starchy solids

with all the seafood you can have…………………..

see you at the next post, where I am serving up another delicacy from Rivers State – Onunu

Onunu is another interesting delicacy from Rivers State. Interesting because of the way it is prepared. I mean, we all know pounded yam, but this is yam pounded with boiled plantains and then finished off with Palm oil and fresh pepper if you wish to add it. Onunu is served with a spicy fish pepper soup. I decided to prepare it for this post, to showcase another delicacy from Rivers State, and surprise, surprise, it went down very well even though I served it with native soup. In my household, Onunu will no longer be served with only fish pepper soup, it can be served along side any local soup of your choice.

You will need

Yam

Ripe plantain

Palm oil

Fresh pepper – optional

Here’s how

1. Put the yam to boil, when it has cooked right about half way, add the ripe plantains. I have found that I enjoy it with a 60 – 40 percent ratio of yams to plantain. Before you pound ensure that both the yams and the plantains have cooked through till soft.

Start to pound the yams first because of its pulp and stretchy nature, once almost smooth, add the plantain. I was feeling traditional the day I made this, hence the mortar and pestle, save yourself the trouble and do this in a food processor with the dough hook/blade attached, or you can use a hand or stand mixer with the paddle attachment first to pound the yams to a pulp, then finish off with the dough tool. It only takes 1 minute.

Once you have gotten both ingredients to a smooth consistency, add a little palm oil. The mash is still hot, which will take away the curdling taste of palm oil.

Finish off the pounding, until the palm oil till properly combines, changing the colour to yellow and you finally have Onunu.

It is quite sweet, the way the plantain combines beautifully with the yam. Today, I am serving Onunu with another delicacy from Rivers State – Native Soup

There is a saying where I work, “if you need the solution to a problem, ask a Project Manager”. That phrase basically speaks for itself because Project Managers have solution driven minds. We spend our working hours putting out fires, chasing after problems, proffering solutions to risks before they manifest into issues, because one slip somewhere and your entire project plan can go down the drain, due to the fact that 9 out of 10 times, most items on your Project plan are linked in one way. Project Managers also have fantastic analytical skills, we look at a problem from all angles. To be successful as a PM, parts of the job must merge with parts of your personality, otherwise you will just be going through the motions i.e. you will be a good PM but not a great PM. If you are thinking of a career change, or someone has dangled the idea of being a PM in front of you, consider this paragraph and then decide if it is for you or not. To all PM’s out there, shout out to you guys for all the hard work and stress ulcers we go through, for the stringent deadlines and unco-operative teams, for the triumphs when red turns to yellow, or yellow to green, for the lows when the reverse happens, and everything in between. Here’s to you guys. We sure do rock don’t we.

I am very proud to say that an IT Project Manager like me came up with a solution to this problem. You have to admit that the traditional way of wrapping the moin moin leaves is a problem for thousands if not millions of women and men. Some bravely attempt it and get frustrated, with the bean paste spilling everywhere, and even when you manage to get some neatly wrapped, the gods of the moin moin leaves will be sniggering behind your back and waiting to unleash mischief, when you open the pot minutes later and find that half the moin moin has ended up in the pot. Sound familiar? Some don’t even bother at all, because the process looks so complicated, and it is easier to simply pour the paste into tins or containers and call it a day. What we all agree on though, is that the leaves do add flavour to the moin moin. An earthy leafy flavour that just rocks, so while many bemoan their inability to wrap the leaves, they just accept their fate and carry on. Well people, all that ends today. PM Elizabeth A. has shone a light at the end of the tunnel, your woes with wrapping the leaves are no more.

If you are thinking, come on Dunni, what is it, tell us NOW. Okay, okay, it is as simple as using the leaves to line whatever containers you will use for the moin moin. Honestly, it is that simple. With the traditional method, the bean paste steams in the leaves and gets infused with flavour, well the same principle applies here. The bean paste is sitting in the leaves too, enveloped in it, but this time you don’t have to wrap traditionally. Think of lining a cake or bread pan with baking paper, think of lining a container with foil, are you following my train of thought now? Good. Now, imagine doing that with leaves. Come on now, come on, imagine it, imagine it, wait for a few seconds, it will soon hit you how ingenious this idea is. Has it hit you now, are you smiling in triumph now, are you shaking your head thinking WHAT!!!!! OMG!!!! that’s genius. Of course, it is the same principle as wrapping. Yes it is, yes it is. I tried it on Sunday and it WORKS!!!!!!. Here’s how

You will need

Your choice of containers – foil packs – big or small, tins, ramekins, cake pan, bread tin, silicone moulds, ceramic baking dish etc

Moin Moin leaves – pre soaked in cold water for at least an hour

A pair of scissors 

Foil paper – depending on the container that you are using

How To

For this experiment, I decided to use not just two types of containers, but two shapes which will cover all the options of containers you will use. A foil pack (square) and a ramekin (circle)

1. Get out your foil pack, one leaf and a pair of scissors. Let the leaves soak in water before you even start the process of peeling the beans in a blender, blending etc. In the time it will take to have your bean paste ready, the leaves would have sufficiently soaked in water. Then you cut the leaves along the spine, leaving you with two halves. Discard the spine.

2. Now you can do this in one of two ways. This is Option A: line only the bottom of the container, with little bits shooting out at the side. You will need to do this, if you want the Moin moin to come out in a perfect shape, i.e. to follow the square shape of the container. The leaves will still infuse the flavour, but not as much. If you are catering or something, presentation is everything.

here is a closer shot

3. Pour in the bean paste, and add whatever topping you wish. This time, I am using sliced egg and fresh prawns.

a closer shot

4. Flip one edge of the leaf over unto the bean paste

5. Then flip the other edge over sealing the bean paste

6. Then you cover the foil pack with its paper cover, and you are done. Yes you are done. No stress, no spillage, no tears, easy peasy. The process  took me less than 60 seconds. Yes, I am anal like that, I timed myself. If your container is not like mine, with its own cover, just cover with foil paper and tuck in around the edges, to seal the moisture in, giving the beans an enclosed space to steam and get infused with leafy flavour. That is Option A done.

Now to Option B. Results wise, this is much better because the bean paste is sitting completely in the leaves, exactly like with the traditional way of wrapping. This is a little more fiddly. Don’t go OCD like me, trying to make it pretty. Just sit the leaves in the container and call it a day. here’s how

a. Sit the leaves in the container completely, like you are trying to wrap the container inside out, with the leaves, like a present.

another shot of it

b. Pour in the bean paste and finish with your topping of choice. See, the bean paste is sitting completely in the foil. Like 100%. Same thing as the traditional method.

c. Flip the edges of both leaves over the moin moin, hey you do this too when wrapping traditionally

d. Cover with the container as before and seal

I repeated this process with more packs, and I was smiling through out. I hope I can bring this smile to you in your kitchen. No more traumatic experiences with wrapping leaves.

even a child can do this

That’s foil packs done. This will represent any square or rectangular container that you  have at home. If you have an abundance of leaves, you can add another extra layer on top before you seal completely with foil or paper cover.

Now to the circular containers. I used ramekins, you can use any circular heat proof container. This was also easy too.

i. Sit the leaves in the ramekin or tin till the edges come out, pour the bean paste in and set aside.

ii. Repeat for your other containers, cover with a roundly cut piece of leaf, then cover with foil, tuck in around the edges, and you are done. How simple is that? You can also decide to leave it open.

iii. Add water to the pot if you will be cooking it on stove, then place the ramekins or tins in a pot and steam. Likewise, you could also place them in a deep baking tray like the picture above, add water to the tray and place in the oven. Yes you read that correctly, oven. Moin Moin can also be made in the oven. Let me expatiate more, especially for people who will doubt that leaves cannot be put in the oven. See below

The first three foil packs you can see, are the results of 3 experiments. Extreme Right, the foil pack is sealed completely. In the Middle, I deliberately left it  unsealed, to see how the leaves will react in the oven. Extreme Left, I placed the paper cover loosely over the covered leaves. See the leaves seeping out? Below, the ramekins are sitting in a tray full of water. As the oven gets hot, that water will create steam hereby recreating the steaming in a pot process.

I set the oven at 200 degrees centigrade and set the timer for 30 minutes at first.

30 minutes later, here are pictures, the leaves have not caught fire (doubting thomases, take note), they are even still green. One of the signs of knowing when moin moin has cooked, if wrapped in the traditional way is the colour of the leaves. They should be brown and not green.

The leaves are still green, of course 30 minutes is too short for the moin moin to be fully cooked. Here’s the proof. It is almost there though. Squidgy in the middle, cooked at the edges. Because the leaves were left exposed, they are a little dry to touch.

for the ramekin. See, the leaves are fine too. Can you spy the bubbles in the water?

I set the timer for a further 30 minutes.

but by 20 minutes, I checked again and the moin moin had cooked through. Making a total of 50 minutes. See, the colour of the leaves? Brown, just like the traditional wrapping method. I hope you can see how moist the moin moin is.

For the ramekins too, all well cooked

The Grand Finale

Here’s the result of the foil packs completely sealed with their paper cover. Overall, in terms of the intensity of the leafy flavour, I will say it is this one, as the paper cover (you can use foil too) completely sealed the leaves in, nothing escaped, and it steamed nicely in the oven. A blind taste test, and you will not believe the moin moin wasn’t wrapped traditionally.

Ladies and Gentlemen, now that is cooking on easy street. Think of the last time you had a kitchen disaster with the leaves, now it is your turn to snigger and smile. You have overcome. Please teach your children, I sure will teach mine when I have them. I can’t wait to show my mum, plus peeling beans in a blender, Moin Moin has now become one of the easiest things to cook. No more excuses.

Saying a big thank you to Elizabeth A. for the inspiration. Genius you are. Nobel Prize in your future. hehehehehehehe.

Oh, one more thing, sorry I just have to add this bit. I am too naughty, not to (insert mischevious laughter). Some naysayers enemies of progress, will probably come up with, oh the traditional shape is beautiful, yadi yadi yada. Well if you can do it, yay for you, whoopdie do. I can do it too, in my sleep no doubt (proof HERE) but I am willing to embrace an easier method, which EVERYBODY can benefit from. Do let some of us live in 2014, and sit your judgemental ass down. Cooking doesn’t have to be tedious, you can manipulate ingredients, techniques etc to achieve the same goal. Science has manipulated old ways to give us the modern comforts we all enjoy now, so if anyone wants to scoff at this method, please drop your technological modern-day device which you used to read this, and go live in 1814, while you are at it. Hehehehe. Sticking my tongue out at you. Told you I was naughty. Looooooool.

Now tell me, this piece of moin moin is not as beautiful or even more than the traditional shape. Arching my eyebrow and daring you to say otherwise. hehehehehehehe. I will be posting the recipe for the Moin Moin below tomorrow. It is truly flavour packed with ingredients to wow your taste buds. Forks at the ready, tuck in.

Think of when you are having a party, how fast this process will be, just give each person one pack and call it a day. For portion control or for fancy plating, use ramekins and serve like that. After all in restaurants, you get served desserts in ramekins.  

Remeber people, you saw this first on Dooney’s Kitchen. Any others would be counterfeits. Copyright rules apply.

It is definitely Moin Moin season on the blog, or more like anything to do with peeled beans. Ever since I discovered how to peel beans in a blender (procedure HERE), all the dishes I had previously ignored have come crawling out of the wood works. First it was Ekuru (recipe HERE), then Akara pancake (recipe HERE), today it is Moin Moin. My next step is the Big Daddy of them all, Gbegiri which I am also itching to make soon.

Why Eclectic Moin Moin? Well, the definition of eclectic is “deriving ideas, style, or taste from a broad and diverse range of sources“. Well, this describes this moin moin perfectly. I was just explaining to a colleague recently what Moin Moin was, and he said he was going to try it out. He is English mind you, and the way I described Moin Moin to him was that it is at best a blank canvas of blended beans. Take peeled beans, blend it and then get creative with it. You can add anything you wish to it. It’s time we think of Moin Moin like Pizza. We have been too traditional and limiting with it. Make it a meaty deluxe version, or fish and seafood, you could even have a veggie moin moin, or a vegan moin moin, I am even extending it as far as adding dairy to it, cream or even cheese. If the idea of adding cheese to it is scary, you could make a creamy chilliy sauce and serve with it. Let us make it a challenge for us today to think outside the box where Moin Moin is concerned. The next time you make it, add something that you have never used before, even it is just one new ingredient, and then get bolder to push the envelope from there. The link to my previous Moin Moin Elemi Plenty recipe is HERE.

Lets work through our local spices and for example, uziza will be great with Moin Moin, so would ehuru, or Uda. Something extra to give it a kick. Or our local vegeables, efinrin (scent leaf, nchawu, ntong) for one. Something your taste buds won’t be expecting. I still went traditional with this one, but it is eclectic in a way because I pulled ideas from different sources, used different types of similar ingredients, and it was very delicious. My totally new ingredient was Pomo (cow skin). Instead of cooking it on its own, I created a rich fish stock of 2 types of strong flavoured smoked fish. If you have run out of beef stock for Moin Moin, just make a fish stock. Here’s how I made my Eclectic Moin Moin.

You will need

3 cups of brown beans

3/4 cup of Pomo – you could replace this with smoked goat meat or turkey

1/2 cup Smoked catfish

1/4 cup smoked red prawns

2 boiled eggs

1/4 cup Ground crayfish

1 cooking spoon of Sunflower oil

1 1/2 cooking spoons of Palm Oil

1 Tatashe – red bell pepper

2 small onions

1 stump of ginger

2 pieces of ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper

Fresh small prawns

Fresh giant Shrimps

Salt Seasoning cubes

How To

1. Add the smoked fish, smoked red prawns, ponmo and chopped onions into a pot, add enough water to cover them, season with a little salt and bring to boil till the ponmo gets soft enough to chew easily.

2. Soak the beans for 5 minutes or under in cold water. Peel the skin off by pulsing in a blender, rinse out the chaff and blend. The procedure to do this can be found HERE

3. Blend the beans with tatashe, ata rodo, onions and ginger till you have a smooth paste

4. Mix the vegetable oil with the palm oil and heat up in the microwave for about a minute and a half. Remember to use a cover to prevent splashes. Once the oils are hot, add to the bean paste. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: it is advisable to heat up the palm oil to prevent a curdling taste on your tongue.

5. By now the ponmo should be soft, so would the other contents of the pot. Empty the entire contents into the bean batter and stir. Add the ground crayfish and stir too. If the batter is not sufficiently liquid enough, add warm water gently till you get to a consistency where the batter is dripping. Thick batter = hard moin moin. Fluid batter = soft, moist moin moin. The picture below, should give you an idea of how liquid your batter should be.

6. Once you’ve gotten the consistency right, season with salt and seasoning cubes. Now, there is one tip I had forgotten about until my Mum mentioned it during her visit last year. Mummy’s Kitchen Tip: when you make moin moin, you season it to the point it is slightly salty, so that when it steams or bakes, the salt level will be just right. When she means slightly salty, not to the extent you will cringe when you taste the batter, but to the point that, if this was soup you were cooking to be served immediately, you will dilute it a little with water to get back to normal levels. i.e. go slightly above the level of your everyday cooking salt levels.

To be sure I would be able to replicate her absolutely scrumptious Moin Moin, I divided the batter into two. One I seasoned to normal salt levels, the other I went slightly above, when they say don’t argue with your mother, it is not just a something concocted to make you a good child. hehehehe. Disobedience doesn’t pay sometimes. Lol. The batch using her tip tasted miles better than the other batch. The other batch tasted great no doubt, but it lacked in salt. So, if you have always wondered why your batter which tasted delicious before you cooked it, is a little underwhelming when it was done, now you know why. The steaming process dilutes the concentration of salt.

7. Slice the eggs and prep the rest of your toppings

8. Spoon the bean batter into your choice of containers. Finish off with the rest of your toppings and steam. If you want the leafy flavour but haven’t been successful with wrapping it, click HERE to find an alternative to wrapping, but still using the leaves.

9. Then you steam in a pot, or bake in an oven at 200 degrees centigrade for 45 – 50 minutes, and that’s your Eclectic Moin Moin done and ready to enjoy.

…….Isn’t that a beauty? The combination of vegetable and Palm oil is a must try

I’m entertaining this weekend, and I already have very grand plans for this Moin Moin. A little twist to it, that will make you wonder why Moin Moin hasn’t been used in this way since. Stay tuned…………………….

I have been seeing pictures of this method of presenting Eba since last year. The first time I saw it, was on Facebook and it reminded me immediately of a Sausage. Very clever idea, this is. Apparently it has been around for a while.

Last week a reader sent me an urgent message saying Dunni, please can you blog about this? I have been trying to do this myself but with not that much success, and I know with your step by step recipes, I will get it right. Here you go Olayinka F. It is quite simple. If you have made a sausage or a fish roll before, the same principles apply. Here’s how

You will need

Your choice of starchy solid – eba, amala, semovita, pounded yam etc

Rolling pin - or glass bottle

Foil paper - or cling film, or plastic nylon wrap

Vegetable oil

How To

1. Lay out your choice of wrap. Here, I am using foil. Pour a couple of drops of veg oil on your choice of wrap and use use fingers to spread it round evenly.

2. Then you pile on your cooked starchy solid

2. With one hand, cover the starchy solid with foil paper in a movement to the other side

3. Ge out your rolling pin or glass bottle, and roll over the foil covered starchy solid, to flatten it, just as you would meat pie or chin chin dough for example.

4. Flatten and roll it out thin enough, just like this. See below

5. Then run your fingers under the tap to moisten it, then you lift the wider end of the flattened starchy solid. See the picture below, the end opposite you is wider than the end towards you. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: this was how mine turned out after folding, yours could be the opposite i.e. the wider end could be the one closest to you. Whichever end it is just look at the flattened starchy solid and start rolling from the wider end.

6. Lift the wider end carefully, and roll towards you gently. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: see the picture below, can you see bits of eba left behind on the foil, making the rolled eba rough. I deliberately did not oil that bit of the foil, so you can see what might happen if you don’t oil your choice of wrap. I also did not wet my fingers, so I couldn’t glide the eba off the foil easily. This was deliberate. For the other end, I oiled and wet my fingers, you will soon see how smooth the other edge will be.

as you are rolling towards you, you will notice swirls beginning to form at the tail end of the Eba.

7. Here is the finished roll below. As I said above, the tail section of the foil was oiled, and I had wet fingers, so as you can see how smooth the finished part is. That’s your Eba roll. This was really quick.

2 minutes tops and you are done. Trust me, whomever you serve this too will be really happy to see this, and you will proud of your handiwork.

Longitudinal view of the roll

back end of the roll

Front end of the roll

See, it looks like a sausage

The Eba roll served with Water Leaf Egusi a.k.a pade mi ni gunpa. Recipe coming soon

Now imagine serving your spouse, family, friends or important gusts what I call sexy Eba. How proud of yourself will you feel?

There are times when a member of the food group is trending. Yes, I said trending, because there is no other way to describe the movement going on right now with Kale. The beautiful thing is that, this awesome vegetable cuts across cultures. It is not an “oyinbo” thing. Africans are joining the Kale movement and it is getting stronger everyday. Now, Kale is flying off the shelves in supermarkets really fast. I went to two local supermarkets on Saturday, and it was all gone. I asked the people stacking the veggies aisle and they said Missy, everyone wants a piece of Kale now. It is one of their fastest selling veggies. From stir fry, to smoothies, to even Kale chips, Kale is the new fashionable foodie thing right now. It is packed full of anti oxidants, vitamins, chlorophyll, and all those good things nutritionists say your body needs. Imagine my disappointment, I had to drive much further to another store to find it.

If you are wondering what Kale is, it is a very dark, dense curly vegetable. A little angry looking if I might say. I have probably walked past this vegetable hundreds of times and eyed it proper. The same way I eye many vegetables, Cauliflower, public enemy number one. On So You Think You Can Cook, members who live abroad are always finding ways to substitute ingredients used in Nigerian food. For some it is a case of cost, convenience or even no choice at all. When people ask, what western grown vegetable can I use in Efo Riro apart from spinach, many times the word Kale comes up. Mostly, I just ignore as sourcing Nigerian vegetables isn’t too difficult for me, and once convenience is in the mix, I can become a creature of habit. Here’s what it looks like.

You know there is a reason why Times has The Most Influential List. Up until recently, I always looked at those lists with major eye roll, because I say to myself who have they influenced (apart from the obvious ones of course). When I started blogging, I got the gist of what it means to be influential, and how people on such lists, well some of them anyway deserve to be on that list. The analogy behind those lists came up in the most unlikely of places. SYTYCC. Kale had been mentioned on the group several times and many people didn’t pay attention until one of our cooking gurus Phisayo A. cooked with it, posted the picture and shared her experience. Then everybody was on Kale like flies to sugar, and for good reason too, it is a fab veggie. Suddenly Kale efo riro, which I will term Kale Riro started popping up multiple times on the group. Kale Egusi soup too followed by a close second. If sourcing Ugu or Soko been a pain for you, don’t sweat it anymore, go the Kale route. I have planned to try Kale in different ways. Efo Riro, Ottong Soup and two more which I am going to zip my fingers for now, because I am due to trying it this week.

I tried Efo riro first, because it will give me a soft landing in terms of understanding how Kale cooks. The volume of fried and seasoned pepper stock involved, will carefully bath the Kale and provide all the flavour. Kale truly surprised me, and I believe using my mother’s tip about new ingredients gave me a winning recipe. I actually made this for the very first time, for a meal drop off service. I know my mother’s tip very well and it gave me the confidence to try this on a customer’s food and not mine for home consumption. I got great feedback from this Kale Riro, I just knew I had to share. I added spinach to it because during Christmas, my cousin Aunty Bukky, one of my cooking heroes made Efo riro with Ugu and Frozen Spinach, and I found it very interesting. Ugu is a very dense veggie for Efo riro, I wouldn’t advise you to use it alone. It is best in Egusi or Edikang Ikong, as the egusi or water leaf carefully masks its texture. I decided to apply her principle, because Kale is very similar to Ugu in texture, hence the use of spinach. Aunty Bukky used more frozen Spinach than Ugu though, I flipped it the other way. Here’s the 1 bunch of spinach I used, compared to the two heavy bunches of Kale in the picture above

You will need

2 bunches of Kale

1 bunch of Spinach

1 piece of Tatashe - red bell pepper

2 – 3 pieces of ata rodo - scotch bonnet/habanero pepper

Palm Oil

Assorted Meats

shredded stockfish and smoked fish

Palm Oil

Crayfish

chopped red onions

Beef Stock

Salt Seasoning cubes

Iru

Overall, the same method and ingredients as my previous Efo Riro recipe HERE hence, not that much pictures. I was cooking for two meal drop off orders. 9 different dishes, any wonder I even remembered to take pictures. My apologies.

How To

1. Follow my old Efo Riro recipe HERE, when you get to the point of adding vegetables, come back. No need to repeat the same words.

Welcome back. I believe you should not have your well fried and seasoned pepper stock ready for the veggies. My mum has a tip, which I have always used when trying something new, it has never failed me. Mummy’s Cooking Tip: when cooking with something you have never used before and it constitutes a major ingredient, always portion it into thirds. You do this to study how the ingredient will behave when cooked, start with the first third and see, then you have time to make corrections if it doesn’t turn out the way you do, or you won’t feel so bad if it doesn’t turn out well. Mama ain’t never been wrong. 

2. Turn the heat down to low, and add the first 1/3 of the Kale. Stir and just watch it for about 1 minute, maximum 2, you will see it leach out some of its water. At this point, I thought hmmmn, if spinach is still coming, there will be more water in the pot. Not to worry. That’s all about to change. You will soon see why portioning into thirds is a very good idea.

the beauty with Kale is, it will still remain green, and crunchy.

3. After a 2 minutes, add the other third, this time, add the third with all the spinach. Even though I used 1 bunch of spinach, it constituted the silent partner. 1 bunch of spinach is roughly 1/4  - 1/2 of a whole bunch of Kale.

once you add the send batch, now you will even see more water coming out, at the beginning

give it another minute or so, then bubbles will start to form, turn up the heat and taste. You will notice the flavour of the Kale strongly, with a hint of the spinach, but the interesting part is that the first Kale batch has now softened to merge with the texture of the spinach, while the second Kale batch is still crunchy. Watch it for another minute, and then get ready to add the last third.

Then turn add the remaining ground crayfish to absorb some of the water. See…… Also add the smoked fish and stir carefully.

4. For this last third of the Kale, make sure you turn up the heat. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: this is to quickly reduce the volume of water the last third will produce. Then add the last third batch of Kale and stir. The addition of the last batch, plus the heat will absorb most of the water, leaving you with a bright green, crunchy, but at the same time, soft pot of Efo Riro.

There is a term I used to hear a lot on Food Network. I can’t remember the name now, but it has to do with adding an ingredient in stages or phases and getting different textures and flavours out of it. That proved correct here, even though I was just following my Mum’s tip about using a new ingredient.  Despite the staging, or phasing of adding the Kale, the entire thing took roughly 5 minutes. So, don’t be discouraged. ……….and that’s your pot of Kale Riro done. If you have made Efo Riro with Kale before, I urge you to try the stages method with spinach, and tell me what you think.

I found this Kale Riro to be soft, crunchy and mushy, plus it tasted vegetabley, if that’s the word. It meshed beautifully with the rest of the ingredients. Love, love, loved it. The customer loved it too. I am definitely making it again for myself.

This is going to be my first of a series of 4 posts using Kale in Nigerian food. My love affair with Kale has truly started. I hope you join in the fun too.

This is not your regular hot chocolate.This is lush and I mean lush, luxurious, rich, decadent, smooth, silky, warm your cockles through hot chocolate. If you’ve always been buying hot chocolate, or simply boiling water, and making instant chocolate from a tin or container, you will probably never do that again when you try this. Dieters be warned though, this is probably not for you. My apologies. Loooooool

The first time I had this hot chocolate happened to be on a holiday in Spain. I saw it on the Menu and ojukokoro a.k.a longer throat made me order it with shortbread for dessert. If I could lick the entire cup, I would have. One thing that I noticed was that it was spicy. I kept wondering why hot chocolate would be spicy, and I was itching to get back to the hotel, to whip out the iPad and find out what it was. Ever since that holiday, I have never bought Hot Chocolate from a cafe before, neither have I made Instant Hot chocolate again. The time you save to simply mix a powder out of a container with hot water, is not worth the deliciousness and comfort of making this by yourself.

For Valentines, romantic breakfast in bed, or even curling up on the sofa watching TV, this is the drink to do so. So, whether it is sub-zero temperature where you live, or you want to show that special someone how sweet they are to you, go Mexican and you will never go back.

You will need

150g chocolate (I used Galaxy) - let this be a chocolate bar you enjoy eating

Sugar - optional

1 teaspoon of dry pepper - or more

1 cinnamon stick

a dash of Vanilla

1 cup of milk

grated nutmeg

1 scoop of Vanilla Ice cream - optional, though it will make it more rich and cream

How To

1. Temper the chocolate in a make shift Bain-marie. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: a bain-marie is used to gradually melt the chocolate by using steam instead of direct heat. You can also do this in a microwave if you are strapped for time, but I prefer this method.

makeshift bain-marie

2. In a few minutes, the chocolate will melt completely, set it aside and let it keep warm so it doesn’t harden again.

3. While the chocolate is being tempered, heat up the milk with the grated nutmeg, one cinnamon stick and a dash of vanilla. The aroma from this, is so amazing. You’ll see.

4. Once the milk has bubble up and combined well with the other ingredients, add the tempered chocolate and stir.

5. Once it combines properly, add the ice cream (if you are using) and a teaspoon of dry pepper

6. Leave to boil until they all combine, leaving you a smooth creamy, spicy and delicious hot chocolate. and that’s it. How super quick and easy was that.

……………..Serve your Mexican Hot Chocolate in your favourite mug

Make it even more lush and romantic by topping up with whipped cream and a cinnamon stick to stir.

You really want to take it a step further, drizzle with chocolate sauce and chilli flakes

Now imagine, licking off all that chocolate. Get your mind out of the gutter, this blog is PG. Looooooooool

One of the things I said goodbye to in 2013, was the self-proclaimed term disaster baker. I had always worn that badge of honour proudly because I am of the school of thought of, You are either a good Cook or a good Baker. I still stand by those words though, because cooking and baking involve two different skill sets and psychologists will say, two different personalities.

Cooks have a flair for creativity. We don’t like structure, we don’t like being boxed in and we laugh in the face of rules. Neither do we take kindly to someone telling us what to do. Many cooks mirror such sentiments in other real life interactions. Bakers on the other hand love routine, they thrive on structure, respond well to directions, and don’t see the need to deviate from what is expected. A baker wouldn’t dream to add 100ml of something when the recipe says 50ml. A cook would go, what the heck, I will use 100ml, what harm can it do. Cooks are experimental, bakers are precise.

Here’s an excerpt from a funny piece from the Food and Wine Hedonist. It made me laugh my head of and I so agree with him

“With cooking, there’s a lot of leeway in the recipes. Don’t have spinach? Who cares! I’m sure kale will work fine. Overcooked the turkey? Make turkey chili. Over mixed the toum? I wrote a whole post on what to do with it. Put in ½ a cup of butter instead of ¼ cup? That’s not a mistake, that’s GOLD!”

You can have happy accidents easily with cooking. Lots of recipes were discovered from switching things up. Try that with Baking and be prepared to pull your hair out.

“With baking, you have to be precise with EVERYTHING. You can’t just stick a measuring cup in the bag of flour and scoop it out. You have to spoon it into the cup, and then level off the excess with a knife. Otherwise, that extra 1/64th teaspoon of flour will make what you’re baking too dense. Overcooked biscuits? I’m sure there’s a youth hockey team you can donate them to. You can’t open an oven dip your finger in a soufflé to test what it’s missing. And forget about trying to substitute baking soda for baking powder. Apparently there’s a difference.”

He goes further

Cooks think on the run and are constantly making adjustments. They can monkey with ingredients, volumes, and cooking times to fix recipes that have either gone awry or were never good to start with. Bakers are precise, use only what’s on the recipe and follow the instructions word for word. You’ll never see the following in a recipe for croissants:Step 8 – Taste it and decide whether you want to go all Emeril and “Kick it up a notch!” BAM!

Tell me about it. Eye roll***********

I like to think of it as cooks being like artists who love grey areas and unknowns and often display their rebellious streaks when necessary. Bakers are either scientific or anal-retentives, who thrive on total accuracy. Or complete cowards who are afraid to deviate from the path, sticking to what’s comfortable to them

Emphasis on anal retentives. No offense to bakers, we just beef you guys a little, because it is easy for a baker to cross over to the cooking side, with a great recipe. Not so much for a cook. Great recipe or not, our creative or flexible side, just has a way of screwing things up. See my Banana Bread recipe (HERE) for example. I just couldn’t help myself, I had to tweak it. Here’s how the author concluded

If it sounds like I’m being harsh on bakers, it’s jealousy – I suck at baking and it hurts that I can’t do it.

Here are some of the funny comments on the post

“i have this exact same issue. while i love to bake, for the beauty and art of the results, it gives me fits, for everything has to be so exact, so measured, so timed. my nature is to improv, go with the flow, a little of this, a little of that, etc. why i am a better cook”

 

“I am totally with you on this one. I’m definitely a cook, although it has not dissuaded me from routinely undertaking baking projects that are way above my pay grade. The husband, who is a total baker, always watches me with a completely pained expression (I banish him from the kitchen while I bake) as he yells things at me like “a cup of sugar is a rule not a suggestion” and “yes, it does matter whether that thing in your hand is actually a teaspoon or a tablespoon.” I generally ignore him. And my baking is generally a disaster.”

From Esquire.com: Men don’t bake. “You don’t need a cookbook to cook, but you can’t bake without one”. True that. “Because baking is easy, its hard”. “If cooking represents control, baking represents surrender”. “There are two types of people, cooks and bakers”. There are lots of other hilarious examples. I will paste the links to funny stories about this comparison.

Bread, happens to be one of the most difficult things to make. Many horror stories abound, and never in a million years would I have thought to attempt it myself, until it started popping up everywhere on So You Think You Can Cook, a Facebook Group. Terry Adidio, our resident Baker put up a recipe that everyone was trying with gorgeous results. I looked at the recipe, and I swear it looked like Greek to me. I look at a cooking recipe, and immediately my mind goes into action, thinking through the steps and imagining me making it. From start to finish, I can cook a recipe in my head. With a recipe involving baking, my mind just goes blank. I can’t interpret, like a brain block. The testimonies people were sharing made me give it a try, and I went through different stages of panic (as expected). I rarely if ever panic with cooking, somehow I will know how to fix it. Thankfully Terry and other people who had tried his recipe, were on hand to support, and I was grateful for that, otherwise, I would have given up and chucked the ingredients in the bin.

It turned out great, definitely better than store-bought bread, and quite simple too if I must grudgingly admit. I sabotaged myself with my mentality of I cannot bake. If you go into this recipe with confidence, you will do just fine. If I can do this, trust me, you can. Wherever in the world you live in, you can make this. Thank you Terry and the members of So You Think You Can Cook.

You will need

4 1/2 Cup Flour (585 grams)

1/4 cup Sugar (50 grams)

2 tsps Yeast

2 tsps Salt

1 Cup Buttermilk/milk

2 Eggs and 1 Egg Yolk

1/4 Cup Melted Butter (56 grams)

I halved this recipe, as I was making bread for just me. If you have more mouths to feed, use the full recipe. Caveat people: measure and measure precisely. Remember, if this goes wrong, I may not be in the best place to give you advice on how to fix it. For the ingredients, the following substitutions are possible: (1) You can use AP Flour instead of Bread Flour; (2) You can substitute the melted butter with oil or melted margarine; (3) You can substitute the buttermilk with milk or water. Please note that substituting the butter and buttermilk/milk will lead to a less rich bread. The recipe calls for 2 eggs and 1 egg yolk. Save the 3rd egg white for the egg wash at the end.

if you can’t source buttermilk, add lemon or vinegar to plain milk and let it sit for a few minutes. That is how to make homemade buttermilk

1. First step is to activate your yeast. This can be done by mixing your yeast with WARM buttermilk/milk/water for 10 mins or till the yeast begins to foam. You can add a teaspoon of sugar from the 50 grams to the liquid/yeast mixture. This step is VERY important and should not be overlooked. If the yeast does not foam and begin to grow, DO NOT PROCEED. Start all over again or get a new bottle of yeast as your might be too old/dead. The liquid must be WARM (not hot, not kind of hot, not cold, just warm).

2. Mix all the dry ingredients in your stand mixer. Add the melted butter, eggs and yeast mixture and mix still a stretchy dough forms. This will take about 7 mins. Please get it right here and make sure your dough is well kneaded.

If your dough is not well kneaded, your bread structure will be very tight which will lead to a tough loaf. If mixing by hand, please knead longer (10 – 12 mins). The dough should be smooth and stretchy.

See picture above and below. Stretchy dough

3. Form dough into a ball and put in a greased bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and keep in a warm place till DOUBLED in size.

This will take 2 hours. I keep mine in the oven with heat turned off. The bread will rise faster in a warm place. If it has not doubled after 2 hours, you can leave it for up to an hour more. See, doubled in size

After two hours, you have a lot of choices here. You can shape the dough and put in a large bread pan for its second rise. This dough makes a large loaf, so be sure to use a large pan. Alternatively, you can bake it free form. Please use whatever method of shaping or braiding you are used to. The dough can also be made into buns. Be creative. If you want this bread for breakfast, you can shape make it up to this stage in the night, cover with plastic wrap and keep in the fridge. Take it out the next morning, allow to come to room temperature for an hour, apply egg wash and bake.

4. If you choose to braid the bread, deflate the dough and roll/stretch it out either by hand or with a rolling-pin.

5. Place rolled out dough on parchment paper and place everything on a baking tray. Using a bench scraper or a knife, make slated slashes on each side of the dough as shown in picture.

Make sure each slash has a corresponding slash on the opposite side.

6. Now begin the “braiding” process by overlapping the slashes alternatively till you reach the end of the dough. Tuck in the left over dough at the end.

7. Cover the dough loosely with plastic wrap and allow to rise a second time for an hour. Dough will almost double in volume. See, it has risen, from the picture above

8. Apply egg wash using the leftover egg white. If you do not apply egg wash, the bread will not brown. Beat the leftover egg whites lightly with a folk and apply on bread with a pastry brush. Meanwhile, pre heat your oven to 350 degrees for about 20 mins.

9. Bake bread in preheated oven for 30 mins. If the bread begins to brown too early, you can cover it with foil paper after about 20 mins and continue baking.

After the first 20 minutes or so, this was my result

then, I left it in to bake some more and I got this gorgeous looking and tasting bread. I was soooooooo proud of myself.

I laughed a little about its shape, but I achieved my end result. I BAKED BREAD!!!!!!!!

Isn’t that a beauty? If I can do it, you can do it too

I probably will still not refer to myself as a Baker, but at least, I have removed the tag Disaster Baker.

On tearing into hot, steaming, delicious homemade bread, this is what the insides looked like

When you bake bread at home, you will now understand how terrible store-bought bread is. Never again am I buying it. Lots of chemicals in store-bought bread will shock your socks off. Homemade is the way to go. Next baking recipe coming up is another type of bread, Brioche, which I totally nailed.

Once again, Kale is making a showing in my kitchen. Yesterday, I juiced a bag of Kale with 1 bunch of spinach and 2 Apples. It was kind of vile (hahahahahaha), ok not kind of, it was VILE. Lol, but the colour was a shocking dark shade of green (pond water, a colleague called it), I just knew it would be good for me. I intend to juice Kale at least 3 – 4 times a week. Since I started making changes to my diet by incorporating more fruits and veggies, apparently, the changes to my body  are now evident. I didn’t think it has until a colleague said my skin looks great, and I am glowing. No, not a male colleague, hehehehehe. Even my hair is much fuller than before. Viva la Kale. I will pinch my nose and down the chute it goes. If you haven’t joined the Kale brigade, I suggest you do. Apologies to my readers in Nigeria, Kale is a western vegetable, but my cousin Dedun told me it is now being sold at a store in Ikoyi.

After my success with Kale Riro (recipe HERE), which you need to try because a reader Njide, cooked it yesterday and sent in a picture. Wowzer, you need to see her bowl of Kale Riro. Absolutely beautiful. I shared it on twitter, Instagram and the Facebook Page. You need to see it. It was so heart warming to see her result, especially as this is the first time she was making Efo Riro. Again, Viva la Kale.

On the back of a great pot of Kale Riro for a meal drop off service, I decided to try it for another meal drop off service. This time with Oil less Okro soup. I could have added Palm Oil, but the recipient said she did not want it. Nevertheless, it was scrumptious. Kale is especially good in Okro soup, as you don’t need too much, and it will provide another dimension of crunch apart from the Okro. It is commonplace to use Ugu leaves in Okro soup, to provide some depth of texture to the soup. Kale even does it better. Combined with uziza leaves, match made in foodie heaven. Try it this weekend. Here’s how:

You will need

3 handfuls of Okro – chopped

1 small bunch of uziza

1 handful of kale

1 wrap of Ogiri – ogiri okpei

1 wrap of Iru – ogiri isi

2 – 3 pieces of ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper

Assorted meat

1 cooking spoon of ground crayfish

Stockfish

Beef Stock

Smoked fish

How To

1. Boil and season the meats and stockfish, until tender and you have a strong-tasting stock. After which you add the wrap of Ogiri, roughly ground ata rodo and half the crayfish. Let these ingredients dissolve nicely in the stock. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: with ata rodo, I tend to use the yellow ones for white okro soup. As I like my food quite spicy, I use 3 pieces. If I want to introduce a little colour to the soup, I use 2 yellow pieces and one red piece. If you are going to use Palm oil, this is the stage to add it, so that it would dissolve well into the stock.

2. Once the stock is now tasting strongly of pepper, ogiri and crayfish, add the chopped okro and immediately lower the heat. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: you lower the heat to allow the okro cook slowly to absorb the flavour of the stock, without the okro turning mushy and brown. Overcooked okro has a yucky shade of brown, and slimy mushy texture. You don’t want that.

3. In about 2 minutes, you add the chopped uziza leaves. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: you are adding the uziza so early in the cooking process because you want the okro to also absorb its flavour. Overall you are not going to be cooking this soup for too long, so the earlier you add the rest of the ingredients, the better, so that everything would have rhymed perfectly before you take it off the heat.

4. After which you add the chopped Kale, Iru, the rest of the crayfish and stir. Let it cook for another 3 minutes, finish off with shredded smoked fish, give it another minute or so, and you are done.

…………………and that’s how to cook Kale Okro soup. See all the green popping out beautifully amongst the chopped okro? I also love the contrast with the dark colour of the Uziza leaves.

Especially for you guys. Pick one. First come, first serve. Eba or Amala, which would you serve with this?

This is Part 2 in a 4 part series using Kale in Nigerian cooking. I have another experiment to try tomorrow for my guests. Fingers crossed that I produce another winner.

I had a great time hosting yesterday, and the starter I served was Giz-Dodo. I was thinking of how to serve it and then it suddenly hit me. Why not make it into a Fajita Wrap. I thought about it for a while, and I decided to go for it. Mind you, I have never tried this before, but it didn’t seem like such a bad idea. It was fantastic. My guests emptied their plate and I gave myself an inner Hi Five. Recipe for Giz dodo can be found HERE.

The next time you are serving Giz dodo either for guests or your family, make it fun by serving different toppings and allow people to make their own Fajita.

You will need

Fajita wrap

Carrots

Lettuce

Cherry tomatoes

Slivers of green pepper

Slivers of red pepper

Giz dodo

How To

1. gather all your toppings

2. Lay all your toppings in the middle of the Fajita wrap

3. Fold over the wrap and that’s it.

You can make this for breakfast, when you have left over Giz dodo or you can pack this as a snack for work, rather than paying for an expensive sandwich. You can make it a lot of fun by having very interesting toppings like sweetcorn, peas, nuts, prawns etc.

Serve with Orange Juice

Yup, people, I baked Brioche. It is no secret that I love bread. It is one of my favourite things to eat. Anything made with dough gets a thumbs up from me. When I make meat pie, I break off the dough on the outside, eat the filling with the pastry over it and then come back to the dough. That is the best part for me. I do this too when I am eating pizza. I break out the outer part and come back to it later. Many times I am grateful for my metabolism because bread is poison to many people on a diet. You will never catch me eating whole grain bread though. No siree. It is the white stuff for me.

The breads I absolutely love are mostly the French and Italian variety. My mum says I have a posh palate. Now, whose fault I say back to her. Not to forget Agege bread too though. It ranks right up there with French and Italian greats. Brioche is one of those French breads I absolutely love. I think of Brioche, and immediately my mind drifts to Paris, because both go hand in hand for me. I get off the train at Gare du Nord and the first thing I do luggage in hand, is to run across to my favourite patisserie to buy brioche, which I then munch with a huge smile on my face, then remember to find my hotel. I repeat the same dance on my way back home, never forgetting to buy a loaf to bring home with me. The store Paul in Gare du Nord does it so well, all soft, fluffy and buttery. Brioche is not for the faint hearted. It has enough butter in it to probably kill you, but you will go smiling. It is a very eggy, buttery bread that you will absolutely love. If you have tried the other bread recipe I put up, especially if you are a member of So You Think You Can Cook on Facebook, you need to try Brioche. Don’t get sucked in though, this bread is seriously addictive and I have to add a health warning as my public responsibility. hehehehehe

Making this was very easy. Much easier than the other free form bread recipe HERE. Dump everything into a food processor and let it do all the work for you. In terms of the duration, this would probably take longer, but see it as your taste buds and your tummy are preparing for delicious goodness, so are your arteries, prepping themselves for all that butter. Lol. Here’s Terry’s recipe:

4. Put dough in a greased bowl, cover and allow to double in size. Takes about 2 hours. A warm place could be your kitchen cupboard or even a wardrobe full of clothes. 

5. After about 2 hours, the dough would have risen.  

6. Deflate dough, roll into a ball, cover in bowl and keep in the fridge overnight. This will allow the flavors to develop. 

7. The next day, divide the chilled dough and shape into balls. 

8. Then you can get a little creative by taking one ball, cutting it into half, to form crescents or half moons. It even gets better. Sprinkle on your kitchen work top sesame seeds, or desiccated coconut, or even chopped pine nuts, almonds, cashew nuts, grounduts, whatever you fancy. Roll the ball or crescent over what you have spread out on the work top, and place in baking pan. Allow  the dough to sit outside for about 3 hours.

9. The dough balls will further rise during those 3 hours. See the picture below.

10. Brush with egg wash and bake in a preheated 180 degree centigrade or 350 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 25 mins.

……………………….and that’s Brioche done, done, done. Wait a little, to just take in your glorious creation. Look at it adoringly, touch it gently, smell its heavenly goodness. Okay, okay, enough faffing around, dive into it and savour the rich butteryness slowly. Come on, come on now. You know you want to.

I remember taking this picture on my balcony and my neighbours who have never said a single word to me for almost 2 years, beyond hello and nodding their head, stopped and said wow, that looks amazing, can we have a slice of that. Hehehehehe. I was not in the mood to share.

Slice into your Brioche. Believe me, you are never going to forget your first time with Brioche. It will be ingrained in your memory forever.

Croissants are another buttery trap I also love. You need to see me act like a glutton at breakfast when I’m in France. I have received a couple of looks from the wait staff, but I don’t care. No one gets between me and my croissants. The stores here try their best, but no one does Croissants like the French please. You have to give it to them. I have seen recipes for Croissants, and they just give me cold shivers. I haven’t baked bread since December though, so I will step gently back into the water by baking a Baguette. If I nail that one, I am going to dive head in and make Croissants. Wish me luck.

I am not a huge fan of Indian food. Maybe I shouldn’t have started with that, considering this drink is Indian. Two years ago as part of activities rounding up the year, my team chose an Indian restaurant to have Christmas dinner. Despite my objections, I guess I constituted the minority, so Indian restaurant it was. I made up my mind not to like anything that was served. It wasn’t that much of a difficult choice because Indian food just doesn’t agree with my senses. Sight, smell and taste. I have nothing against Indian food, please don’t get me wrong but cumin, garam masala and turmeric are the culprits that contribute to my dislike of Indian food, and hardly will you find recipes that don’t include at least one of these spices, if not all three.

So, after looking through the menu, my eyes just spied Mango Lassi quite by accident and I ordered it. Strange thing is, I watch many Indian food shows on Food Network, hoping to pique my interest to try out Indian cooking, but so far, the Lassi is the only one I will try, try and try again. It is sweet, refreshing and a very good pick me up in the mornings, plus it is very filing too. So, if you are on a diet, this is great for you. Don’t say I didn’t give you guys on a diet something now. Lol.

You will need

Mangoes – 2

Ice cubes – 3 to 4 pieces

1 cup of Natural Yoghurt - unsweetened

Milk - optional

Sugar - optional

Toasted cardamom seeds for garnish

I put down optional for milk because many Indian recipes say add milk, but I found that I didn’t like it. I preferred the just yoghurt option. As for sugar, I believe that is self explanatory. If you are staying away from the “white crack”, leave it out.

How To

This is so simple to make, you can do this on your way to work.

1. Dry toast the cardamom seeds in a pan and set aside.

2. Peel the skin of 2 mangoes and chop the pulp into chunks. Throw away the seed

3. Into your blender or smoothie maker, combine the rest of the ingredients (except the cardamom seeds – if you like using them in cooking, you may as well add to the blender). As regards to using milk, I will say try the yoghurt only option first, if you enjoy it then try the yoghurt and milk option, and then you decide which you prefer.

4. Blend until smooth. Taste, and decide if you think you need a little extra sweetness. Sugar or honey will do the trick. it is supposed to be slightly thick and not runny like juice, so be careful with the ice cubes, or milk. If you find it too thick, just add about half or 1 whole mango.

…………..and that’s your Mango Lassi done.

Cold, refreshing and bursting with all the good stuff.

You can make this for breakfast, a fun smoothie for kids, for entertaining, or just a calming relaxing drink on weekends.

I’m not sure yet what I feel about Valentines day to be honest. I just see it as a day that puts a lot of pressure on many people, and cannot be enjoyed by everyone the way lets say Christmas is. If you are in a relationship or married, there are certain expectations, if you are single, for some there may be a certain moroseness, pardon my English. Lol. Oh, some in fact many will probably get engaged on Friday, some may get what they want, most probably wouldn’t and if you’ve been married or dating for a while, the zeal kinda disappears after a while. I guess, you don’t need a day to remember the person you love, to be sweet to them and thoughtful, well that’s just me, what do I know. Loooool.

One common thing with Valentines is food, and I don’t mean restaurants, I mean all sorts of recipes for “valentines” will be popping up all over the place, and some poor, going all out to impress people (most likely women) will plan to be so ambitious and most of the time, that very pretty plate of food you were challenged to try for Le boo ends up in disaster, and you’ll be upset. Le Boo will probably eat the food for your sake, all the while mentally kicking themselves for not insisting you guys go out for dinner or something.

So, this post while commemorating Valentines, is a no pressure, laid back, no need to fall over yourself for and no tears, I promise. I am just taking normal everyday food items and making them special. It is the thought that counts they say. It is not as if you can’t go all out and do something special for the one you love, but there’s that uncanny self-inflicted, subconscious pressure you are under to impress on Valentine’s day that if you made that same dish on another day, it would probably be a breeze. So, save all the fancy, complicated for lets say the week after and take basic food and give it some va va voom. Sweet and thoughtful that is guaranteed to an elicit a smile without you breaking a sweat.

Here’s my interpretation of Valentines on Easy Street

Breakfast - simple but special, make my Crepes and serve with strawberries, whipped cream and chocolate drizzle. Who doesn’t love Pancakes for breakfast

Valentine’s Dinner

Starters - do something that involves eating with your hands. There’s something extra romantic and bonding when you eat together with your hands, so make a wrap for example. Gather easy and simple fresh ingredients to fill your wrap and hands everywhere, picking and choosing, wine flowing, conversation getting started, while having a laugh together. You can make light, fun wraps. An example is my Giz dodo Fajita wrap (recipe HERE) below. You can also make Grilled Chicken Shawarma.

Main Course - who said rice is boring. If that’s what you have at home and can quickly put together, make it fun by using fun shaped moulds. If you’ve got kids, I am sure there must be something of theirs you can turn into food moulds. Here’s my Happy Home Jollof and Fried Rice, with shrimps used to form the heart shape and baby tomatoes used to signify fruitfulness and abundance. Link to Rice Dishes HERE.

Set the table, to set the mood. Don’t forget the scented candles

Dessert - They say things are better in two’s, well here’s my Banana bread fingers and salted caramel popcorn ice cream.

They say things are better in two’s Grab your forks and both of you can share dessert.

After dinner drinks - While you snuggle up on the sofa or in bed, let a hot cup of Mexican Hot Chocolate be the third companion. The only time where the phrase three’s a crowd is actually welcome. Remember to add some brandy or rum for that extra kick.

I hope I have inspired you to take a deep breath and have a relaxing no pressure Valentines. Remember, it’s not the fanciness that’s important, but genuine, heartfelt gestures.

For single gals, please get your girlfriends together and have a fun day.

Happy Valentines everyone.

Someone mentioned a few weeks ago on Facebook, if Semovita (as we Nigerians call it) can be made into a cereal as you would oats or porridge (as we Brits call it). Well you can. My mum made this for us all the time, especially when she had run out of Quaker Oats and she was in no mood to go to the store. This is very, very, simple to make and very filling too.

On those mornings you are rushing to go to work, or on a saturday morning where you just want to feed the children and go back to sleep, get out your container of Semolina or Semovita, make a quick breakfast and back to bed you go. No, Semovita can not just be made into a starchy solid eaten with Nigerian soups, it is also a bona fide breakfast with milk, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon, all spice, cloves, whatever you can think off which works well with milk, go for it.

I planned to make this for Valentines breakfast weekend, and I wanted to make it even more special by making a spiced Apple Compote. For breakfast on a holiday many moons ago, the waiter, plunked this plate of heavenly aromatic spiced Apples in front of my travel companion and the aroma got me reaching out for my spoon in seconds. Generally, I don’t like apples. I detest the thing, but that day it was a battle of spoons and I didn’t let the person who ordered it eat in peace. Yes, I’m naughty like that. Hehehehehe, there is joy in sharing. I promised myself to make it when I got home and totally forgot, until yesterday by some weird chance, I passed right by apples in the supermarket and I suddenly remembered. Oooooh, Dunni, serving spiced Apple Compote with Semovita Cereal will be wicked, and so it was. Really delicious and extra special. Here’s how.

You will need

2 Green Apples - i used Golden delicious

2 tbsp of Demerara sugar - brown sugar

Freshly grated ginger

1 cinnamon stick

a sprinkling of Cloves - konofuru

a knob of butter

1/2 cup of Semovita Flour

1 1/2 cups of milk

1 cup of water

a dash of Vanilla Extract

Sugar

How To

1. Peel and core the apples, after which you quarter them and set aside.

2. In a pan, melt a knob of butter

after which you add the Demerara sugar, the apples then leave for a few minutes for the sugar to dissolve in the butter and coat the apples.

3. Sprinkle in cloves, freshly grated ginger and add the cinnamon stick. Stir and then lower the heat, to let all the flavours combine.

In about 3 – 5 minutes, the apples will take on a golden brown colour

4. Then add the freshly grated ginger, the cinnamon stick and a little water, just a little to form a syrup. Lower the heat, and let the apple stew in the spices.

then crack on with the Creamy semovita. The apples will stew gently, and absorb all the flavours, leaving a golden brown colour and a thick syrup

5. For the Semolina, add water and milk into a deep saucepan and bring to a boil, then add a dash of vanilla and lower the heat to simmer.

While the milk is boiling, dissolve the semovita flour in water, and stir with a spoon. Wait a minute or two, and you will notice, water floating back to the top, while the semovita flour has sunk below. Decant the water on top.

6. Add the semovita paste to the saucepan and stir. Ensure that the heat is till kept on low.

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: you need to cook this on low heat to allow the semovita cook into cereal form, otherwise, it will congeal and solidify, which you do not want. This is for a cereal, not a starchy solid eaten with Nigerian soups.

7. In about 2 minutes, stir gently, and keep stirring, while you watch the paste thicken and absorb the milk.

If it is too thick, add water or milk and keep stirring until big bubbles begin to form, and the paste is smooth. Finish off with sugar to taste or honey, leave for about a minute for the sugar/honey to dissolve and you are done.

Serve your creamy Semolina with extra milk and a sprinkling of sugar. How beautiful is that

Don’t forget your spiced Apple compote. Breakfast of Champions.

Valentines Weekend Breakfast………………

or Sunday Morning Breakfast. Look at that container of Semovita you have at home and tell yourself, you now have other ways to make it. Need another picture to remind you how yummy this is, well look and imagine. Hehehehehe. Have a nice weekend people.

You must be wondering, did I read that correctly. Dunni has come again. To you, I say why not. We have tried Kale Efo Riro which I named Kale Riro (recipe HERE), or at least I hope you have. We have also tried Kale Egusi soup, some of us have, well I think it is time to step out of the Yoruba culture and explore what other ways we can cook Kale Nigerian. Today, I am stepping into the Efik culture to cook the “revered” Edikang Ikong. Yup, I dared to, I went there, deal with it.

If the lack of sourcing Ugu and Water leaves have been a problem for you, well this is good news. I have told very many people to substitute spinach for water leaf, as water leaf is more difficult to find than Ugu is. Well, if you live in those parts of the world where even finding Ugu is a problem, well look no further than Kale. This is very similar to my Kale Riro recipe, but this time cooked Edikang Ikong style i.e. no tatashe, no frying the onions, no frying the pepper, no adding Iru etc. Cooked proper Efik style but with different vegetables. I served this for my SYTCC ladies on Saturday and they can testify, because that their plates came back empty.

The joy of being a cook is the flexibility you can afford yourself. The dimensions you can go to with food are limitless, and if we want other people to embrace our food, to understand that we are a food super power too, we have to learn to drop down our walls and take that leap. No dead king is going to cut off your head, nah, no grandma is going to roll in her grave, even if she does, oh well, sorry Grandma. You are alive, she is dead and the world is for the living. If you check the meaning of culture, you will find that it evolves. Lets hold hands today and be known as that generation of Nigerian cooks, who dared to look into the face of tradition, but not to throw it away but to adapt it. Let us be the generation known to introduce new flavours and concepts to Nigerian cooking. Let our daughters and our sons remember and thank us when they can easily walk into a store in major cities anywhere in the world and prepare food that is familiar. Let our generation be the one where the ball of frustration stops because you no longer have to miss home cooking, when you can improvise to delicious results. Can I hear an Amen somebody. The Nigerian Food revolution has started in earnest, which part are you prepared to play in it?

Okay, enough of the political speech, let’s get to cooking. After, I had much success serving it last week to my SYTYCC guests, I decided to cook this again today. People, this is the best thing I have EVER made with Kale. I have probably stepped on the toes of the Efik people enough today, but I will stretch this a little further and say I prefer this veggie combo to the traditional one. Okay, I am running away now hanging unto my head. Hehehehehehehehe. That’s just my naughty side talking. No offence meant really.

If you are reading this and you live in Nigeria, not to worry. Wherever I wrote spinach, replace it with Water Leaf. Where I wrote Kale, replace it with Ugu. See, everyone is happy.

You will need

2 bunches of spinach

1/4 – 1 bag of Kale - see, i am also replicating the ugu : water leaf ratio

Assorted meats

2 pieces of Yellow ata rodo (scotch bonnet/habanero pepper) - use red if that’s what you can find

Palm oil

Large Prawns

Ground Crayfish

Periwinkles

Shredded Stockfish and Smoked Catfish

How To

I would like to stress again, that I used the same method as my previous Edikang Ikong recipe HERE. This time I am using un-shelled periwinkles, because by some stroke of luck, I found some at BIMS in Peckham.

1. Boil your assorted meat, with very tough smoked catfish. Season with seasoning cubes and salt. Trust me, if you want to stop using seasoning cubes and salt in your soups, get your stock right and you will no longer need to. A tip I learnt from my Calabar friend Joy.

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: I normally boil a huge portion of meats, with lots of stock, but for Edikang Ikong, I pick out the pieces of assorted meat I need into a separate pot, add about 4 cooking spoons of stock to it, and let it boil till the meats absorb almost 80% of the stock, leaving very little. Remember, Edikang Ikong is not a watery soup, using too much stock at the beginning will spell doom later on.

2. Now you have your assorted meat and softened smoked crayfish in the pot, with the stock reduced, add freshly grounded pepper (ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper) and Palm oil. With the heat on medium, allow the palm oil to dissolve into the stock, and let it be simmering nicely, getting ready for the chopped spinach.

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: A little tip from me about cooking with spinach. Many people have problems cooking with spinach and I’ve always wondered why, because it has always been smooth sailing for me. Today, out of nowhere, it hit me. I always buy my spinach in its natural form i.e. stalk and all. By chopping the leaves with the stock, you are giving the leaves some body, so when you cook with it, it is not as watery as using the leaves (picked of the stalk) alone. So, if you’ve always bought frozen spinach, try buying fresh, and I don’t mean fresh already picked of the stalk in bags, I mean fresh as in, a bunch of Spinach, and when you do buy the bunch, don’t put it in the fridge. There is something about the cold air that turns your spinach to mush.

3. Chop the spinach and add to the pot.

for some strange reason (i was probably cooking on auto pilot), I decided to add one half of the spinach first, then I remembered periwinkles, and I stopped. Got it out of the freezer,  then added the other half.

4. Once the spinach is in, crank the heat back up to high. In about 2 minutes, the spinach will be wilting nicely, and would have leached water out into the stock, not to worry. Just stir and leave it for another minute or so, and add the fresh prawns, while you are at it. . See, the water at the edge of the pot. Again, like I mentioned above, the pot is not flowing with water, because I am using fresh spinach.

You need to let the spinach wilt properly and soften before you add the chopped Kale. Here’s my Kale sitting pretty in the Colander to drain properly.

5. Chop the Kale and add to the pot. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: now, I will be a little honest here. I bought a bag of Kale, thinking I will use it all. I ended up using about half. When you are pouring the Kale in, start with taking it in handfuls first and stir. A full bag, is probably too much. Right about the halfway mark, you will see that it is just right. You don’t want to use too much Kale and drown out the Spinach. 

6. Once, you have your Kale in, with the heat still on high, stir, and then add ground crayfish and a little extra smoked catfish. Dooney’s Kitchen tip: I always like adding crayfish towards the tail end of cooking, so you get the maximum impact of its flavour.

7. Stir gently, and just leave the veggies to combine nicely with the other ingredients for another 2 – 3 minutes. Taste for Salt and Seasoning cubes, and adjust if necessary. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: One tip I picked up from Joy which always freaks out novices with Edikang Ikong and leads them to making a rookie mistake (adding extra stock) is this. After you add the Kale and stir, it will look like all the water has been absorbed and you will think your end result will be too dry. Do NOT be tempted to add stock, seriously DON’T. Palm oil to the rescue. 

Adding Palm oil, will create the fluidity that you need. About a cooking spoon extra or more. Remember, Edikang Ikong is NOT a watery soup. When the Kale has wilted sufficiently enough, but still with a green colour, take it off the heat. You don’t want to overcook the veggies.

…………and that’s your Kale Edikang Ikong, done and dusted. Enjoy!!!!

When the soup has fully cooked, and you serve, you see the juices that you were initially scared wasn’t there, will gradually pool beneath the vegetables in the plate. See below.

Okay, if I served this to you, and did not let you know that I did not use the traditional veggies used for Edikang Ikong, you wouldn’t know. Trust me.  Even if I did tell you, believe me, it tastes sooooooooooo good, you wouldn’t care. My guests definitely didn’t. That plate emptied so fast, I had to go get some more from the pot.

I love French bread. I have loved this bread ever since I was a little girl, way before I ever stepped foot in France. My mum always bought it from Ikeja, anytime she was doing business in the area. When we finally moved to Ikeja, it was one of the consolation points, because we loved our old house so much. Anybody who grew up in an around Opebi Road, Allen Avenue, Toyin, GRA, Ogba, will definitely remember Big Treat bread. The queue for that bread was insane. People queued for hours, and the breads will be off the shelves faster than the bakers could drop them. Whenever you are in the area, the aroma wafting from Big Treat supermarkets was unmistakable. Their bakery was famous in the area. People who didn’t live in Ikeja came from far and wide just to buy their bread. If you go there shortly after Christland School had closed for the day, you will queue till your legs hurt. We who lived in the area, used to be so irritated about it. It wasn’t cheap either, but it disappeared very fast in people’s homes. Their cakes too were an absolute delight. Take any child to Big Treat, and be prepared to leave your wallet open. They were the first confectionery to open on Allen Avenue before TFC moved in, followed by Sweet Sensation. I hope this is bringing back memories for some of you. Shout out to all Ikeja babies whether you lived or schooled there. I lived off Allen Avenue, a walking distance from Big Treat Confectionaries. My parents still live there.

Right beside Big Treat it is Osata supermarket and they sell the most beautiful Vienna sausages and every other yummy goodness you can think of. Planta margarine, Walls ice cream, bacon, hot dogs, smoked chicken, luxury chocolates, frozen fish, seafood, you name it Osata stocked it. Most of our breakfast items came from both stores. Gosh, those were the days. Once Mummy calls the landline to find out if there is still bread at home and we say no, we drop whatever we are doing and just sit by the door like puppies waiting for mama to come home. This was one of the times Mummy did not need to honk her horn more than once. We all came flying outside screaming Mummy, Mummy, falling over ourselves to get her bags, and rushing back inside.

As always she will raise her voice loudly enough to say, it is meant only for breakfast, I am going to make dinner shortly. We will then turn back to her with our sad puppy eyes saying please, please, please mummy, just a little. Then she will smile with the words okay, okay, I bought an extra loaf, just because I know you hungry mongrels will have at it  before breakfast. It was a dance that repeated itself so often, it always elicited the same reaction, but sometimes she had to put her foot down because Big Treat only allowed each person to buy 2 maximum just so it could go round. We were not happy bunnies on those days. Lol.

Gosh, lots and lots of memories surrounding bread. I ate good bread so much, no wonder it is one my favourite things to eat. On the back of being succesful with making bread twice (recipe HERE and HERE), I decided to take on one of the most iconic parts of my childhood. The French Baguette. I looked at a couple of recipes and groaned in misery, until I found this video from Food Wishes with one of the funniest voice overs ever. Chef John is such a hoot. It was such a blessing that the recipe is sooooooooooooooo easy, it is ridiculous. You don’t need any gadget, no prior experience with making bread. If there was no video, I wouldn’t have believed it, but alas he wasn’t telling lies. This is the Real McCoy and I am happy to bring this to you. This truly is a wish come true for me.

This recipe makes 4 small baguette or 2 Large ones. Please get your weighing scale out for this, it is highly important.

You will need

Caveat: You may be wondering why so many steps, well I am breaking this down to the barest details so you don’t have any problems when trying this recipe out. In general, the steps are not that many, each one will probably take you about a minute or so, but I know details help, especially with baking. You shouldn’t spend so much time making this at all, so don’t let the number of steps scare you.

1. Measure out the 1/4 teaspoon of yeast and the salt, then add to a mixing bowl

2. Measure out room temperature water carefully and pour into the bowl and stir. Remember, you don’t need this yeast to sit and froth or whatever.

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: now, I feel I have to mention this. With this recipe, you don’t need warm water, you don’t need to wake up the yeast, but I believe if you are not sure if you yeast is still active, measure about a teaspoon of yeast, mix with warm water and a little sugar. If it is frothy after about 10minutes, then it means your yeast is fine. Don’t forget to THROW AWAY THAT MIXTURE. You don’t need it. Just revert back to the original recipe. I was using 7g sachets of yeast, so I knew my yeast was fine, but if you have yeast that comes in a big container and it has been open for a while, you may need this tip I just put down. 

3. Add the flour and mix. At first, it is probably going to look like the dough will be too wet.

Notice, the dough should still feel sticky, wet and elastic.

 

Yes people, you read that correctly. You only need yoghurt. Permit me to start with I hate cheese, probably still do, right from childhood. Gosh the smell, ugh, the taste, double yuck. You couldn’t get me to try anything with cheese even if you tried. While children loved pizza, I wouldn’t touch it. Nothing my mother did not try, nope, I wasn’t having any of it. I was the bush child who didn’t like Pizza and my mother just rolled her eyes in helplessness. Weird thing is I like Wara (our local Nigerian Cheese).

All that changed when I went to Italy for the first time and I tried Lasagna. I ordered it with a lot of trepidation because the diner at the other table was wolfing it down and it looked and smelled great. Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it. Google to the rescue, I found that lasagna is made with mostly Parmigiano Reggiano, english for Parmesan and sometimes Pecorino Romano. I bought it from a supermarket, my Ijebu brain bought the cheap brand and it was disgusting. I threw the entire pan of Lasagna away. On my quest to finding the cheese that I could tolerate, I went Italian again and tried Mozzarella balls. I loved it because they tasted like Wara (our local Nigerian Cheese). I moved on to Ricotta, and I found that I liked it too. Ok then, being more adventurous I tried Mascarpone, and loved it too. Then I decided to shell out a few extra pennies on Parmesan and Pecorino, and realised, cripes, cheap cheese truly is not the way to go. I loved it too and so far, these are the only types of cheese I can tolerate either raw or in cooked form. 

Okay, you can see a trend here. The commonality is Italy. I love Italian cheeses because they are quite tarty and tangy. French cheese, get me the vomit bucket please. The day I tried Brie de Melun at a restaurant, I had to excuse myself to spit it out in the bathroom, I just couldn’t swallow it. I’ve tried Gruyère too, ugh, please shoot me. Roquefort, Camembert ugh. British cheese also has the same effect on me. Give me anything with Cheddar, Stilton or Leicester, and the sight alone will turn my stomach.

After discovering on Facebook months ago, that you can make butter at home, the next thing to look for, was making cheese. I have made Wara at home before, but like Wara, the cheese recipes I was seeing, though very simple to make, the ingredients used are not universally easy to find, until I put into Google, how to make cheese with one ingredient and voila, I got an answer I was not expecting. Yoghurt. Plain or Natural Yoghurt is all you need to make Cream Cheese. No fuss, no fancy hard to source ingredients. Wherever you live in the world, you will be able to find yoghurt. Now, I am going to use this post as my training wheels for making cheese, so that when I post more homemade cheese recipes with ingredients like cream, rennet, bacteria culture etc, I would have at least given some of you readers the chance to try at least one of them. This one.

You will need

1 container of plain or natural yoghurt – or more

Salt to taste

I must stress that you need plain, natural or greek style yoghurt. Anything that has been sweetened in any way will NOT work. You need yoghurt in its sour original form. You can use full fat or low-fat.

Instruments

Cheese cloth – or any white fine cloth with tiny holes

plastic bag

cardboard or carton paper

A heavy cylindrical object like an unopened can

How To

1. Get your container of yoghurt, whatever volume you can find. Also get out the cheese cloth or whatever fine white material you are using and make 3 layers, if you have sufficient fabric, otherwise one or two layers, is just fine

2. Line the layered cheese cloth into a bowl and pour the yoghurt in. Short story: I ordered cheese cloth online and despite being told it will be delivered within 48 hours, it wasn’t. So, I had to make do with this piece of fine white felt like fabric I use at home for cleaning. Luckily, I had just one unused one left. If you have cheese cloth, or a white piece of fabric with tiny holes in, or even a very light napkin, use it.

3. As soon as you lift the cloth up, you will see liquid oozing out below, this is what you want. It should happen almost immediately, if the cloth is fine enough. See picture below. All that pooled into the bowl in under a minute. That is when you know you have a good thing going there.

4. Assist the process by squeezing out some of the whey with your hands

5. Tie the edges of the cloth and hang it up in the fridge for 24 hours, with a container to hold the whey that drips. Traditionally, you let it hang over the tap, but it would be in your way, so it is best to tie it up, get a piece of string or unused elastic band, and hang it over something that will also collect the whey. In my case, I was making a small test batch, so my tall glass was just fine. Remember, leave in the fridge to drain for 24 hours.

6. After 24 hours, this should be what is left in the cloth with whey drained out. Squeeze out as much of the whey you can from the cloth first, before examining what is inside the cloth. If the fabric still feels very wet and the curds feel mushy, like congealed yoghurt instead of the creamy cheesy texture, it means the whey hasn’t drained out enough. Leave for another day or so and it should be fine.

7. If you have excess cheese cloth, double line a ramekin (or round container) that is deep enough to hold your cheese. If like me, you don’t have excess fabric, then thoroughly rinse out the fabric you used to drain off the whey and double line your round container.

8. Season the cheese with salt. You just need a little, so don’t over salt it.

9. Scoop the salted cheese into the double lined ramekin 

10. Cut out a piece of plastic wrap that is round enough to fit over the cheese. This will help peeling it out easier. You can use a supermarket plastic bag. I definitely did.

11. In the same vein, cut out a piece of cardboard or carton, and place over the plastic wrap. An easy way to get the exact shape and size you need is to place the container over the cardboard or carton and use a pair of scissors to trace out the shape you need.

12. Find something slightly heavy which has a base that will fit nicely over the top of the cardboard to weigh it down and place in the fridge for 2 days.

2 days later, take your container out of the fridge, peel out all the layers and you should have this gorgeous cream cheese that tastes sublime. Way better than anything you will ever buy in a supermarket. Considering I’m not a huge fan of cheese, I made a small batch, and it finished in minutes with crackers and nuts. Now, I have to get a bigger container of yoghurt and make more.

To make it even more delightful, drizzle over some golden syrup and nuts. I saw it being served this way on one of the sites with steps on how to make cheese. This is a gorgeous option for a Starter for your dinner party. Just make individual pieces of cream cheese a few days before your party and serve with nuts. Drizzle with honey, golden syrup, maple syrup or hot sauce and that’s your Starter done

Who wouldn’t want to be served this?

As you can see, I dug in really fast with Jacobs Crackers

Perfect Sunday snack. You can also add icing sugar to your cream cheese to make cream cheese frosting for chocolate cake or red velvet cake.

I descended on the Cashew nuts too

Lest I forget, you can also make your own Homemade yoghurt. Just buy a jar of yoghurt, and mix with milk, shake thoroughly and leave in the fridge for a few days. The culture in your store-bought yoghurt, will combine with the added milk, turning the entire solution to yoghurt. See, two recipes in one post. How cool is that?

Look out for my recipe this week on how to make Homemade Jam. Have you looked at my Homemade French bread? You really need to. It is equally as simple, with minimal effort. Recipe HERE

First of all, Gbure is the Yoruba term for Water Leaf, so this can also be called Water leaf Egusi, but I like to stick to the full Yoruba name. It sounds sexy. This soup is a delicacy local to the people of Abeokuta in Ogun State, Nigeria. I picked up this recipe from Oyinlola Olamoyegun, a member of SYTYCC on Facebook. Someone mentioned cooking egusi with water leaf, and asked for a recipe. It was a little strange to me to hear this combination, considering Egusi is probably my most favourite thing to cook and eat, and I have tried it very many types of vegetables. My grandmother made her special Gbure soup, something like Efo riro when we were ill and had lost our appetite. We never appreciated peppersoup as children, so her soup came in handy because it was really watery, the water leaf was quite soft, so no chewing necessary and it was quite spicy. It helped to get some food and necessary fluids into your stomach.

I was really intrigued to make Egusi soup with water leaves. In fact, Oyinlola called it ‘pade mi ni gunpa’. For non Yoruba speaking folks, this means meet me at the elbow. This is because this soup is very watery, courtesy of it being cooked with lots of water leaves, so as you chow down with your starchy solid, it is inevitable that some will drip from your hands down to your elbows. Hehehehe. It was quite an interesting experience making this, and it introduced a new dimension to cooking Egusi soup. I happen to have another recipe for Egusi soup, called Marugbo soup because it is cooked with Marugbo leaves. This is a delicacy local to the people of some parts of Ondo state. A member of SYTCC has said she will send some across to me, whenever she goes to Dalston Market. I can’t wait.

If Egusi is becoming quite monotonous for you, try it the Water Leaf way. It will definitely be a hit in your home. Here’s how

You will need

Whole Egusi seeds

1 red onion

Palm Oil

1 – 2 pieces of Tatashe - red bell pepper

2 – 3 pieces of Ata rodo - scotch bonnet/habanero pepper

Assorted meat

Beef Stock

Crayfish

Stockfish or smoked fish

Lots of Water leaves - substitute with water cress/baby spinach

Seasoning cubes

Salt

How To

1. Toast the whole Egusi seeds in a pan for a few minutes to intensify the flavour, after which you grind in a dry mill to a powdery form and set aside.

2. Peel the onion and blend to a smooth paste

3. Carefully add the ground onion to the Egusi powder until you get a thick paste. Emphasis on thick, so don’t go overboard with the onion paste. Place in the fridge to chill for at least 30minutes.

4. Heat up palm oil in a pot, add a little bit of chopped onions and let it fry till the onions soften.

5. Add the roughly blended tatashe and ata rodo. Let it fry till it thickens. It is essential that it thickens.

6. Get the Egusi paste out of the fridge, and add it to the fried stew in balls. Pour in beef stock to the pot, roughly 1/2 to 1 cup worth depending on how much Egusi paste you have. This will prevent the egusi balls from sticking to the bottom of the pot and burning.

6. Depending on how lumpy you want the Egusi to be, stir, every couple of minutes. I wasn’t really interested in getting lumps. If you want to know how to really make Egusi very lumpy, click HERE.

7. Once the Egusi has cooked, with patches of oil floating at the top, add ground crayfish and stockfish or smoked fish and stir carefully for a few minutes to allow the crayfish dissolve in the soup. Taste for salt and seasoning, but you should not need to as the beef stock, crayfish and smoked fish really should have provided all you need. You can re-adjust if and only if necessary. Once you are satisfied with the intensity and flavour, add the rinsed out water leaves. Lots of it. I forgot to take mine out of the freezer, so I added it from frozen.

8. Stir and lower the heat. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: you need to lower the heat to allow the leaves gently leach out their water content into the soup without evaporating. On high heat, the soup would thicken and you will miss the ‘pade mi ni gunpa’ effect, which really is the essence behind this soup. In a few minutes, you would notice the soup getting more watery, and probably slightly pale, with patches of water bubbling in the pot. This is what you want. You will also notice the leaves shrinking too. You may taste at this point and feel like strength of flavour from the beef stock or seasoning cube has been diluted. Do NOT be tempted to re-season.

9. Continue cooking till you get to the point where you can see big oil patches floating on top of the soup, then you know you are done. Remember I told you in the previous step not to re-sason? Taste it now, and you will notice the flavour is back up again. if you had added additional salt or seasoning cubes earlier, it would have been a salty mess.

You need to serve this soup immediately because Egusi has a very good absorbent quality, and if you leave the soup sitting on the pot, it will absorb all that delicious liquid that you need for the ‘pade mi ni gunpa’ effect. Hehehehehehe. So, start on your starchy solid, while you are waiting to see the palm oil float to the top.

……………… Gbure (water leaf) Egusi a.k.a ‘Pade mi ni Gunpa’

……….see how much liquid is oozing out from the soup?

I served with Yellow Garri Muffins

Enjoy and get the tissues or napkins ready, to deal with the soup sliding everywhere. Lol

I really don’t get the fascination with Tilapia. The fact that it is quite a ‘meaty’ fish is what makes it score points with me, otherwise, I am not such a huge fan. The bones it has, is also enough to scare the daylights out of you. After a traumatic experience of swallowing fish bones as a child, I kinda have a phobia for Tilapia. The other meaty fish that I really really enjoy are Tuna (gosh I love tuna steaks), swordfish, grouper, and croaker. Tilapia has this strong fishy smell, plus it is not the easiest fish in the world to season because it can sometimes turn out tasting bland. Despite my rule about not overloading fish/seafood with too much spices of aromatic veggies, cooking with Tilapia is the only time I break that rule.

My mum shares my sentiments about Tilapia too, and it rarely made a showing in our house, and when it did, it was mostly grilled, or battered and fried. Anne, a dear friend who I met through SYTYCC was coming over to mine with lots of meat goodies, and I knew I had to reciprocate my giving her something to take home. She is a bonafide fish lover, so I just knew grilling a whole Tilapia for her to take home, would be a good way to show my appreciation. She came from quite a long way away with her family.

Again, I was looking for something to add that extra kick to tilapia, and I thought of oven grilling it in traditional Moin Moin leaves. It was amazing. Quite a hit. The aroma of the leaf, coupled with the seasoning and the fish while it was grilling in the oven was just sublime. Quite unexpected too, because you tend to associate the aroma of moin moin leaves cooking with Ofada rice or steamed Moin Moin. If you have access to sourcing these local leaves, try grilling fish in them and tell me how it turns out. You will love it I am sure.

Quite simple to prepare. Here’s how

You will need

Whole Tilapia

red onions

ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper

Green chilli

Ginger

Garlic

Lemongrass

1/2 a lemon

Olive oil

Suya spices

Curry

Thyme

1 large Moin Moin Leaf

Salt

Seasoning cube - optional

How To

1. Chop all the veggies finely. I just got this Hand blender with a mini chopper accessory and it is simply the best. it chopped all this in seconds. No tears from the onions, no stingy fingers from the chilli. One of the handiest tools to have in your kitchen.

2. Lay your well gutted and cleaned Tilapia on a large Moin Moin leaf. Take a knife and make a deep gash on the side to create a hole because you are going to stuff some of the chopped vegetable and seasoning in it, this will help it penetrate deep into the fish. To get rid of that strong fishy Tilapia smell and taste, rub half a lemon all over the fish and inside the fish, squeezing lightly to release lemon juice. This will serve as the base to hold your seasoning.

3. Pour over the chopped veggies, and also stuff the fish with the chopped veggies. Take one stalk of lemongrass and pass it through from the head to the body of the fish. After which you sprinkle the curry powder, thyme, salt and suya spices. You can also sprinkle over 1 seasoning cube if you wish. Drizzle with olive oil.

see the slit I was referring to above? Remember to stuff the fish as much as you can. This will also help to keep the insides moist, and flavourful.

4. Wrap the leaf around the fish, and use toothpicks to seal it tight. Place in the fridge for hours to marinade, and bring it out to grill shortly before you serve. Wrap in foil to prevent the leaves from buying in the oven, place on a baking tray and put in the oven. If you don’t have foil at home, fill a deep baking tray or baking pan with water and place at the bottom of the oven. This is to help create steam, which will ensure that the oven is nice and humid, and the leaves will not dry out and burn. Grilling should take about 15 – 20 minutes with the oven set to 180 – 200 degree centigrade.

Remember to place the fish with the leaves sealed in the oven. After 15minutes, check that the fish has cooked through, then expose the fish, for about 3 – 5 minutes to allow the skin to crisp up.

This was how it looked like when it came out from the oven. As Anne was taking it home with her for Lunch the next day, it would be better enjoyed if she reheated it by exposing the fish in her own oven. So, I have no pictures of how crispy it would have turned out