Recettes Nigeria

Ayamase Stew

Ayamase is the green pepper stew of southwestern Nigeria, known almost as widely by two other names, ofada sauce, after the rice it is served with, and designer stew, which is what Lagos took to calling it. It is defined by two things that would be faults in almost any other stew. The peppers are green rather than red, which gives the sauce its unusual dark olive colour. And the palm oil is deliberately bleached, heated until it stops smoking and loses its red pigment, which strips out the characteristic palm flavour and leaves something nuttier and smokier behind. That bleaching step is the whole signature of the dish, and a version made with unbleached oil is a different sauce. Around that sit iru, the fermented locust bean that carries the deep savoury note, assorted meats including offal, and boiled eggs, which are close to obligatory. The name points to a person. Ayamase is traced to Ikenne-Remo in Ogun State and to a woman remembered as Mrs Felicia, Iya Mase, the wife of Mase, who is credited with the dish. It travelled from there into Lagos party food, where its reputation as something special was made. It is served with ofada rice, the short, unpolished local rice whose earthy flavour is the intended partner.

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55 minMediumNigeria · African

Recette de donbuffy · Africook

Ofada Stew Recipe

Ofada stew is the Yoruba stew served with ofada rice, and it is regularly confused with ayamase, including, as the source cheerfully admits, by people who have been eating both for years. The distinction is real and it is about the pepper. Ayamase, the green bell pepper stew also called designer stew, is built on green peppers and comes out dark olive. Ofada stew proper uses red peppers and tomatoes and is red. Both use bleached palm oil, both carry assorted meat and iru, and both are served with the same rice, which is exactly why the confusion is so widespread. Buka stew is a third relative in the same family, which does not help matters. The rice is the fixed point. Ofada is a local unpolished short-grain rice with an earthy, slightly fermented aroma that people either love or find odd. Its strong flavour is what these stews are built to stand up against, a delicate sauce would disappear next to it. Assorted meats are the other constant: beef, shaki, ponmo, offal, and locust bean for depth. It is traditionally served wrapped in leaves.

MediumNigeria · African

Recette de Blessing · Africook

Eko (Agidi) and Efo Riro

Eko and efo riro is a Yoruba pairing, and each half is a substantial dish in its own right. Eko, also called agidi, is a firm pudding set from fermented corn starch, sliced and eaten cold or at room temperature. Efo riro is the Yoruba vegetable stew, built on palm oil, blended pepper, locust beans and leafy greens with assorted meat and smoked fish through it. The contrast is the point. Eko is cool, firm and slightly sour from the fermentation, with a clean corn flavour and almost nothing else going on. Efo riro is hot, oily, salty and densely flavoured. Putting them together works in the way that plain rice and a heavy curry work, and neither is quite right without the other. Eko is traditionally set in wrapped leaves, which give it its characteristic shape and a faint aroma the greased mould does not reproduce. It is sold that way across southwestern Nigeria, most often alongside akara or moin moin at breakfast, though the pairing with efo riro makes it an evening meal. Riro means stirred, and the name describes the technique: the vegetables are stirred into the finished stew base rather than cooked in it, so they hold their texture.

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1 hrMediumNigeria

Recette de Taiwo Oladapo · Africook

Oha Soup

Oha soup is an Igbo soup from southeastern Nigeria, built on the leaves of Pterocarpus mildbraedii, an African evergreen tree. The leaves are seasonal, which makes the soup an occasion rather than an everyday dish, and there is no substitute that reproduces its flavour. The leaves are shredded by hand, never cut with a knife. The reason given is that a blade turns the soup bitter, and whether or not that holds chemically, the practice is observed universally and is one of the more widely known food rules in Igbo cooking. It is worth following on its own terms. Thickening is where families diverge. Cocoyam, pounded smooth after boiling, is the standard, though achi and ofor are both used and give slightly different bodies. The oil divides along geography: Anambra households use akwu, raw palm kernel oil, while Imo households use ordinary palm oil, and each considers its own version correct. Uziza leaves go in alongside the oha for a peppery counterpoint, and ogiri igbo, the fermented seasoning paste, supplies the deep savoury note the soup is built around.

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1 hr 25 minMediumNigeria

Recette de Nympha · Africook