Tomato Stew
London, United Kingdom ·
Aperçu
Tomato stew is the foundation of West African home cooking, the red base that sits in a pot in the fridge and turns into half a dozen different meals across a week. It is not really a single recipe so much as a technique with a very wide licence. Tomatoes, red bell peppers, onions and chilli are blended, then cooked down hard in oil until the water drives off, the colour deepens and the oil separates and rises to the top. That separation is the signal that it is done, and it is the step people most often cut short. What it becomes afterwards is open. Served over white rice it is stew. Rice cooked in it is jollof. It goes with yam, plantain, beans, spaghetti and every swallow. Meat, chicken or fish can be cooked in it, or it can be kept plain and used as a base. In many Nigerian households a large pot is made at the weekend precisely so the week's cooking becomes quick. The variations follow region and household. Some cook it with palm oil, some with vegetable oil; some add crayfish, some do not; the ratio of tomato to pepper shifts the colour from bright red to deep rust. It keeps for several days refrigerated and freezes well in portions, which is much of the point.
