Jollof Penne Rigate
Overview
Jollof penne rigate is what happens when the Nigerian jollof method is applied to pasta rather than rice, and it has become a genuine staple of home cooking rather than a novelty. The logic is straightforward once you see it. Jollof is not really a rice dish, it is a technique. A base of blended tomato, red pepper, onion and chilli is cooked down hard in oil until the raw edge burns off and the mixture darkens, and then the starch is cooked in that base so it takes on the colour and flavour all the way through rather than being sauced at the end. Apply that to pasta and you get jollof pasta. Penne rigate is the shape most associated with it, and the ridges are the reason, they hold the thick tomato base in a way smooth pasta does not. It sits in the same family as the spaghetti dishes cooked across Nigeria and Ghana, and it belongs to the same broad West African habit of taking an imported staple and cooking it by local rules rather than the rules it arrived with. In Nigerian homes it is weeknight food, lunchbox food and party food, and it is one of the dishes most likely to be cooked by someone learning to cook for themselves.
AFN Heritage Note
Jollof pasta applies the West African jollof method, a tomato and pepper base cooked down in oil, with the starch finished in that base, to imported pasta rather than rice. It belongs to the same pattern of adaptation that produced Nigerian and Ghanaian spaghetti dishes.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 1
Make the tomato sauce first.
- 2
Blend the fresh tomatoes, white onions, fresh chilli and tomato paste to form a smooth paste.
- 3
Add some oil and garlic in a pan then cook the tomato paste till the moisture is reduced.
- 4
At this point, you season to taste according to your preference.
- 5
While this is cooking. Parboil this pasta till it is 80% cooked.
- 6
Drain the pasta and combine the pasta and the tomato sauce.
- 7
Let it cook for a minute, then top it up with bell pepper and white onions.
- 8
Serve hot and enjoy.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from Ermanuella Ben- Cook the tomato base until the oil separates and rises. Until that happens the sauce still tastes raw, and this is the step most often cut short.
- Parboil the pasta to about eighty per cent and finish it in the sauce. Fully cooked pasta added at the end will not take on the colour.
- Keep the heat low once the pasta goes in, and stir gently, high heat at that stage scorches the tomato base against the pan.
- Salt the pasta water properly. It is the only chance to season the pasta itself rather than the sauce around it.
- Reserve a little pasta water to loosen it if the base tightens up.
Reviews
5 reviews
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Made a batch for iftar using halal vegetable stock powder for the seasoning. Blending the fresh tomatoes and white onions together makes such a smooth base, and frying the garlic in the oil first gives it a lovely rich smell. My late mother used to make a spicy pasta sauce but the bell peppers in this give it a fresh sweet bite.
Herh, you Nigerians will put jollof sauce on anything oo! But I tried it last night with the penne rigate. Blending the fresh hot chili directly into the tomato paste and white onion gives it proper heat paa. I added a bit more garlic than half a bulb though. It came out good chale, but rice is still king.
Used 100g of penne rigate and reduced the tomato paste down in 1/3 cup of sunflower oil until the moisture was totally gone. Pulling the pasta off the stove when it was strictly 80% cooked is key so it finishes in the sauce without turning to mush. Lekker meal to throw together just now.
it turned out way too thick for us. 1 cup of tomato paste to only 100g of penne felt like way too much paste, it turned into a heavy sludge in the pan before the pasta even reached 80% done. Had to dump in a splash of water to fix it. Flavor from the garlic and chili was good though.
abeg if you don't parboil the penne to 80% first it will just scatter inside the stew o. I used four fresh chili because I like sharp pepper. E sweet no be small thing! The rigate ridges really hold that thick cooked-down tomato paste well.