Tomato Stew
London, United Kingdom · View all recipes
Overview
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.
AFN Heritage Note
The blended tomato, pepper and onion base cooked down in oil is common to cooking across West Africa, and is the foundation from which jollof rice, stewed rice and a wide range of household dishes are built.
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
Wash the tomatoes and blend alongside the fresh pepper, also blend the crayfish alongside the nutmeg seed.
- 2
Slice the onion and set aside. You need 1 cup of sliced onions.
- 3
Wash the meat (Goat meat in my case) and parboil with three stock cubes, a teaspoon of salt, teaspoon each of curry and thyme and half cup of sliced onions.
- 4
Also sprinkle a teaspoon of your favorite beef spice.
- 5
Most times I chose to fry the tomatoes in a frying pan separately and then add it to the cooked meat in the pot.
- 6
Set your frying pan on heat.
- 7
Add 400 ml of vegetable oil. Add the sliced onions and fry for about 2 minutes to release the scent into the oil.
- 8
Then pour in the ground tomatoes/pepper and fry (stirring occasionally to avoid burning).
- 9
You have to keep stirring for the next 20-30 minute, you don’t wanna end up with burned tomato stew.
- 10
Add extra stock cube (optional), add the ground crayfish/nutmeg and allow to cook for ten minutes.
- 11
Taste for salt
- 12
If you are using vegetable, you can add it now, allow to simmer for 3 minutes are you are done with making tomato stew.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from Nympha Nzeribe- Cook it until the oil separates and rises. This is the whole test of whether it is done, before that point it still tastes raw and sharp.
- Blend the peppers and tomatoes, then drain off the excess liquid before frying. Less water means less time reducing.
- Fry the tomato paste, if using, separately in oil until it darkens before it meets the blend.
- Make more than you need. It is the same effort for double the quantity and it freezes in portions.
- Adjust pepper to tomato for the colour and heat you want, more red bell pepper gives a sweeter, brighter stew.
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