Potato Leaves "Petehteh Leaf"

Hello NCC readers! Hope you’re having a fab August bank holiday weekend and enjoying whatever activities you have lined up. Once again, thank you all for continuously checking out my blog and Facebook page your support is really appreciated.

Mouth watering Sweet Potato Leaves

In Sierra Leone our staple food is rice and we have this with a variety of greens we call “plasas”. “Plasas” are green leaf sauces cooked with assorted meat and smoked fish. Most of the green leaf dishes have a similar style of preparation however, I must add different indigenous tribes have their own style of cooking but all result to a delicious mouth watering end product. In this post, I decided to cook and blog about one of Sierra Leone’s hearty green dish sweet potato leaves “petehteh leaf" as it is known across Sierra Leone. This dish is a very delicious sauce full vitamins and iron that helps with the flow of oxgen in your blood. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully get to try my own version of this recipe. Aprons on!!!

Serving for 4

part ingredients

Ingredients 

3 packs of already chopped sweet potato Leaves

200ml of Palm oil

Pack of Ogiri

Tin of Butter beans

4 table spoons Peanut butter (smooth)

Assorted meat of your choice

Smoked fish

Scotch bonnet pepper (to your taste)

2 medium sized Onions

Maggie seasoning (2 cubes)

Salt (to your taste)

3 okra

Directions

Chopped and washed potato leaves

Pot ready  to boil with meats and onion, pepper ogiri paste

1.       Start with washing then bringing your meat to boil until tender for approximately 30-40 minutes.

2.       Next wash the chopped potato leaves and leave it in a colander to drain any excess water.

3.       Next blend onions and scotch pepper with ogiri. This should look like a thick smooth paste.

4.       After the meat has boiled, add the above paste mixture and your meat in a medium sized cooking pot, add 2 pints of water and bring to boil for about 20 minutes.

5.       Whilst the pot boils, mix the peanut better with 50ml of water so it is slightly watery.

6.       Add peanut butter mixture, palm oil, maggie seasoning, and salt after the 20 minutes or until you have a thick soupy consistence.

7.       Then add the washed potato leaves with the smoked fish. Mix the pot and leave pot to boil for a further 15min in medium heat.

8.       Finally chop and crush okra and add to the boiling pot. Turn the heat low and let the sauce simmer for a further 5 min or until the palm oil is floating.

Voila! Dish is done! 

Tongue smiling dish

Brown Rice with Liver Stew

Brown Rice with Liver Stew

Happy New Year Readers! Hope you all had a wonderful holiday season and 2015 has been good to you so far! First post of the year! Sometimes you just want to prepare a quick and easy meal for either lunch or dinner. This tasty dish is perfect if want to get in and out of the kitchen in 30 minutes. I enjoy eating liver stew it brings back fond breakfast time memories in Sierra Leone. We would have it mostly with “tapala”or“fullah man braid” (breads similar to the French bread roll). In this post however, I opted for brown basmati rice. I hope you get to try this dish Aprons on!

Serving for 2

1. A pack of 360g liver
2. 1 large onions
3. Handful of fresh cherry tomatoes
4. Olive oil
5. Maggie seasoning
6. Black and white pepper
7. Rosemary, garlic, ginger paste
8. A cup of brown basmati rice 

Ingredients 

Cooking Instructions

Liver Stew

1.      Wash and cut up liver into chunky cubes

2.      Drain excess water with kitchen towel

3.      Season liver with rosemary garlic, ginger paste and black and white, pepper

4.      Slice onions into chunky slices lengthwise and tomatoes in half.

5.       Pre-heat 30ml olive oil in a pot.

6.      Stir in seasoned liver, onions, tomatoes and a teaspoon of paste into the pot and fry in medium heat for 5 minutes or until tender

frying up the liver

7.      Leave to cook for a further 10 minutes and then dish is ready for serving.

8.      In the meantime, steam a cup of brown basmati rice to go with your stew.

Voila! Dish is done! 

Brown Rice with Liver Stew

Coconut Rice and Coconut Stew

Coconut Rice and Stew garnished with coriander and black pepper corn

Hello NCC readers! Hope your weekend was cool and fresh and you enjoyed our typical lovely British Spring. I had a wonderful day yesterday hanging out with my crèche kids from church at our Jesus super hero event.

Before I headed down I quickly conjured up some Coconut Rice and Coconut Stew. This dish is prepared the exact same way as Jollof Rice and stew. The only difference is coconut cream is added to give the coconut flavour to both the rice and stew.

Ingredients 

1. 2 cups of Rice
2. Assorted meat of your choice (chicken, beef on bone, etc)
3. 1 tin of chopped tomato
4. 4 medium size onions
5. 3 bell peppers (green, red and yellow)
6. 2 scotch bonnet peppers
7. Spring onions
8. Seasoning
9. Vegetable oil
10. Tomato puree

Part of the Ingredients ready for cooking

Coconut Stew

1.      Wash and season your meat.

2.      Steam seasoned meat for about 20 mins

3.      Chop onions, peppers and spring onions. Divide the chopped vegetable into half. Half for the stew and the other half for the rice.

4.      Blend one onion with 2 scotch peppers

5.      Pour oil into hot sauce pan and heat to cooking temperature.

6.      Once oil is heated, fry chopped onions, peppers, spring onions and chopped tomato for about 20 mins

7.      Add bits of the blended pepper and onions into the stew whilst the above is cooking.

8.      Add season and salt and coconut cream for flavour and 2 squeezes of tomato puree to give the stew colour.

9.      Add seasoned meat to the pot with fried stew and turn the heat low.

10.  Leave stew to cook for a further 10 minutes or until all the water from the stew has evaporated.

 

Coconut Rice and Stew

Coconut Rice

1.      Fry chopped onions, bell pepper, chopped tomato in oil  

2.      Wait until the vegetable softens, then add tomato purée and other half of coconut cream.

3.      Wash rice and add to the stew and mix thoroughly together (add more tomato purée to give the rice the colour you want

4.      Add water and bring to boil on a low heat. Add water as you go along until rice is perfectly cooked to your taste.

 Voila! Dish is done! 

Yum Yum