World Cup Special - Nigeria

In our culinary tour of the globe courtesy of the football world cup our next stop is Nigeria...  I was a little worried that I would not be able to find a suitable vegan dish that would please omnivore and vegan alike but when I found Tomi Makanjuola's www.vegannigerian.com I knew I was on to a winner.  So to accompany the Super Eagles game with Bosnia-Hercegovina we decided to have a jollof rice, pineapple and peanut stir-fry and a super hot salad with Nigerian dressing...

Jollof Rice

Ok... so the jollof rice was a combination of Tomi's http://www.vegannigerian.com/2013/02/jollof-rice.html and a word of mouth of recipe from a colleague of my friend...

Ingredients

(serves 4)

- 2 cups basmati rice

- 1 large red bell pepper

- 1-2 scotch bonnet peppers (depending on how hot you want it!)

- tin of tomatoes

- couple of chopped tomatoes

- 2 cloves garlic

- Fresh ginger grated

- 1 small onion roughly chopped (it is going in the blender!)

- 2 vegetable stock cubes

- 2 tbsp fresh thyme

- Salt to taste

- 4 tbsp of vegetable oil

Blend the bell pepper, scotch bonnet peppers, tin of tomatoes, onion, ginger and garlic with some water to form a smooth mixture.

Heat the oil in a pot and add the mixture, along with the stock cubes and seasoning.  Dependent on how much rice you are cooking up... I put in another 3 smallish mugs of water to mix and gently bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and let it cook for about 10 to 15 minutes to let the rawness of the tomatoes and onion abate.

Add the rice to the mixture and stir well. Cook for about 30 minutes periodically coming back and giving the mixture a stir to ensure that the rice does not stick to the bottom of the pan. You may have to add a little more water if the mixture becomes too dry.  After 30 minutes the rice should have absorbed all the water and be softly imbued with the tomatoey, chilli flavours. 

Pineapple, Peppers and Peanut Stir Fry

This recipe came straight from the Vegan Nigerian site.... fantastic. The red peppers, fresh pineapple and peanuts were an amazing combination of zingy flavours... definitely something I will cooking again.

Salad With Nigerian Salad Dressing

Again from the Vegan Nigerian site... http://www.vegannigerian.com/2013/04/nigerian-salad-dressing.html. This was a delicious melange of mango, chilli, lime and ginger... if you want to pep up your salad with some really hot flavours then you cannot go wrong with this recipe!


So a real big thanks to Tomi Makanjuola and her wonderful blog that made vegan Nigerian food a reality for us.


Score:
Game: 3 Food: 4 (the one goal was good but the game did not keep my attention....  luckily the food pepped me up... ).