Nigerian Cooking

The UK is finally inching its way towards summer, however tentatively -- but enough for me to justify putting my coat and dark clothes into storage and bustin' out my brighter summer wardrobe. Theoretically this also means ditching heavier meals in favour of light refreshing food. For me, that means putting aside (or cutting down on, rather) my obsession with Nigerian food.

I've made a fair few friends from Nigeria at uni, and they've introduced me to some new foods, such as plantain (delicious), yam (growing on me), and pumpkin leaf (surprisingly tasty despite the smell). So in a simultaneous ode to leaving the cold weather behind and some of the best food I've ever eaten -- no, seriously -- I've dedicated this post to Nigerian-inspired recipes, whether someone made it for me or I scavenged it from the internet.

Plantain and Ejike Gravy

This is literally one of my favourite dishes of all time. I've only ever heard it called "vegetable gravy" but for me that only connotes the plain brown liquid poured over Sunday dinners, so I named it "Ejike gravy" after the friend  who first made it for me and then taught me how to cook it myself. He cooked yam as well as plantain, but I wasn't too fussed on the powdery taste. I live less than a mile from an Afro-Caribbean shop, which is where I buy the pumpkin leaf (frozen -- the dried ones always taste too bitter for me) and plantain. 

If using frozen pumpkin leaf, I defrost it in a tub on a low heat in the microwave. Peel and slice the plantain, and fry it in oil until yellow and brown at the edges. To make the ejike gravy, add the pumpkin leaf,  and chopped onions and bell pepper to a frying pan with a little oil. After a couple of minutes, add some chopped tomatoes. Mix in a vegetable stock cube and some chilli seeds or powder.  It doesn't sound like much, but it is so good.

Rice and Beans

I just made this up one night at about 9pm after a day of drinking. The premise was simple: throw everything I had leftover into a wok and wait for the magic to happen. It would have gone great, if I hadn't been so drunk that I thought that the way to make it taste as nice as possible was to include every single spice and herb that I had in my cupboard. God, that was vile.

But the basic ingredients were good, and it turns out that it's similar to a Nigerian dish, too.

Set some rice to boil (being careful not to overcook it like I did in the pic). All you really need is kidney beans, half a tin (... or a full tin) of chopped tomatoes, a bit of onion, and chilli and thyme (and a stock cube if you want an extra boost of flavour). I also added chopped cherry tomatoes, a tiny bit of courgette, and some leftover pumpkin leaf for extra nutritional value as well as mushrooms because, well, everything tastes better with mushrooms. Throw it all together and let it simmer.

Vegetables and Boiled Plantain

This is the first recipe inspired by the awesome blog The Vegan Nigerian, which I cannot recommend highly enough. Recipes regardless, it's reassuring to know that there are vegan Nigerians (one Nigerian I met claimed to be a vegetarian but ate chicken; he thought being vegetarian just meant eating healthy). As you can see, it doesn't look much like the original. I didn't have a julienne peeler and didn't feel hungry enough for wheat spaghetti, so just stuck with the vegetables. I added some water to the cooking vegetables so that I could sop up the juices with the plantain (in hindsight, maybe too much water).

Chop up a plantain and boil in salted water until the pieces turn yellow and are soft all the way through. The original recipe said to keep the pieces in their skin and remove afterwards, but I accidentally misread that part and peeled mine before boiling, but they turned out fine. I used a 1 calorie spray to cook chopped cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, mushrooms, and courgette with a little salt and pepper. I think that this is one to keep around for summer.

Indomie 


Indomie is an intimidating name for noodles. I've heard over and over "It has to be Indomie," which is a brand name of packet noodles, but one packet of noodles is much like another. It seems to be a staple in student houses, probably because it's easy, cheap, and filling. I've seen oil put in "to stop it from becoming sticky," which just seems unnecessary to me; the oil can also be used for frying up egg that typically accompanies this meal.

Set water to maybe three inches deep to boil. Chop up a bit of carrot and throw it in to boil (for my first time using non-frozen veg, I used tinned carrots, which turned out to be a huge mistake: they tasted burnt even though I added them towards the end). Add a packet of noodles, and as they soften stir them up to separate the block. Chop up a bit of red pepper, quite finely, and add that to the water. Remember to stir in the flavour packet -- I think chicken flavour works well but curry is my favourite. Add peas: typically garden, but I love marrowfat so I used them; seriously, while I was waiting for the water to reduce I was eating them out of the tin with a fork. Mix everything up (add a tsp of curry powder -- or chopped chillis -- if you want a bit more flavour) and just wait for the water to reduce before chowing down.

Pasta Ndu

Another recipe from the Vegan Nigerian: I changed the name only because she used Yoruba language and I'm trying to learn Igbo, so Ndu is the Igbo word for green. And, as you can see, it's extremely green: I wouldn't hesitate to say monstrously so. Think I added too much water -- I don't even know what happened but it kind of looks like baby food. Threw in some chilli powder and cayenne powder for extra flavour, but it was still too bland for me. Maybe garlic? To be honest, I don't think I'd make this again, but it was definitely worth a try -- and, if nothing else, a different experience to the usual tomato-based sauces I do.

Set a pan of pasta and a pan with a small (chopped up) potato to boil.  Fry up some chopped onion and mushroom. When the potato's soft, add it to a blender with some green veggies: I used courgette, green pepper, and spinach. I still can't be bothered shelling out for fresh chilli peppers, so I'm sticking with the powder until I've used them all up. Mix pasta, green stuff, and the fried bits.

Agege Club Sandwich

Again, the inspiration for this comes from the Vegan Nigerian , by which I mean that it's from there that I heard about a sandwich with three slices of bread. Why am I only just learning that three layers of bread is an acceptable thing?? Anyway, this was just an excuse to buy a loaf of Agege bread. I'm not kidding around here: if you haven't tasted it before, you need to go out and buy some. I always prefer brown seeded bread, but once every two weeks my local Afro-Caribbean shop gets batches of this bread (and the proprietor assures me that he sells out of it within a few days) and I had to get some. Just buy it. That's all I can say.

Cut three slices of Agege bread. If you want to make your own hummus, blitz a can of chickpeas, garlic, some lemon juice, and some chilli in a blender to whichever consistency you like (don't add any liquid). Fill up the sandwich with sliced tomatoes, lettuce, and onion -- and anything else you fancy. Liven up with the hummus and some sweet chilli sauce. This is a sandwich best enjoyed in private: on the other hand, if you're significant other sees you getting through this mammoth beast, with the mess it entails, and still finds you sexy, then you know s/he's a keeper.

This is my first post on Nigerian food, but I'm positive that it won't be the last. Although I'm a real wuss when it comes to spicy food, there's something extremely enticing about the rustic flavourful dishes of Western Africa.

P.S. Late-night blogging was accompanied by surreptitious cuddles with The Good Dog (who also makes sure no scraps of food are left on the floor)