Nkwobi (Spicy Cow Foot)
Aperçu
Nkwobi is cow foot cooked until gelatinous, then dressed in a thick, spiced palm oil paste and served warm in a wooden bowl. It is Igbo, and it is the definitive Nigerian beer-parlour dish. Its reputation is as something ordered out rather than made at home, a dish for exclusive restaurants and drinking spots, eaten in the evening with a cold beer. That reputation is partly deserved and partly an accident of presentation: it arrives looking elaborate, and the technique is genuinely simple. The paste is what defines it. Palm oil is emulsified with akanwu, potash, also called kaun or edible limestone, which thickens it into a smooth yellow cream rather than leaving it as oil. That reaction is the trick of the dish and is what separates nkwobi from cow foot in sauce. It is commonly confused with isi ewu, which is the same treatment applied to goat head. The paste and the presentation are near identical; the meat is entirely different. Utazi leaf, sliced very fine, goes on top, along with sliced onion. **Uses potash.** Culinary quantities are traditional, but it should be used precisely rather than by eye.
