Homemade Ginger Beer

Homemade Ginger Beer

Hello Readers, I hope you all had a lovely summer. I know it’s been a while since I last blogged and feel a bit guilty for this extra long break. My summer has been hectic and amazing. Amongst other things, I had another opportunity to do Nigerian style canapés for a wedding of 250 guests in Marylebone London and that was another great success to add to my achievements.

On to today’s recipe, I LOVE homemade ginger beer. The first thing I scout for when I arrive at a Sierra Leonean party. It is a refreshing beverage that goes with almost every Sierra Leonean dish. Additionally it is also a good mixer with most hard liquors especially vodka. The steps to prepare this tasty beverage are easy to follow and require no more than 20 minute prep time depending on the size of your blender. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully try out the recipe. Aprons on!!!

Ingredients & Equipment

Ingredients

1.       1/2 kg Loose Ginger

      2.       2 cups of Sugar (white or brown)

      3.       5 litre drinking water

      4.       2 Fresh Lime

      5.       2 Fresh Lemon

      6.       Teaspoon Cloves

      7.       Blender

      8.       Clean white kitchen towel

      9.       Wooden Spoon

      10.   Large plastic bowl

      11.   5 litre pitcher

Preparation

1.       Chop loose ginger into small chunky pieces

Sieving ginger using kitchen cloth

2.      Add to blender with a cup of water to get the blender going and blend really fine.

3.      Rinse cloth to get it moist and wet.

4.      Place cloth over plastic bowl and pour blended ginger over cloth at the same time; pour small amounts water over the blended ginger whilst mixing the ginger to get the juice from the ginger. 

5.      Repeat this step until you have used up all the water. Use additional bowl if you need to.

6.      Once all the water has been sieved through, squeeze any excess water from the ginger and cloth.

7.      Squeeze lime and lemon juice through a sieve to avoid seeds to get into the ginger drink.

8.      Add sugar and cloves into the bowl then mix thoroughly using wooden spoon until the sugar particles are dissolved.

9.      Finally pour drink into pitcher and refrigerate for up to 2 hours.

Homemade Ginger Beer

Voila Ginger Beer is ready to quench your thirst!

African Canapés

Hello Readers, hope you are all doing well. It’s been a busy summer and exciting things have been happening at Nina’s Cookery Corner. I did my first huge wedding gig in Vienna Austria, preparing and displaying a selection of African canapés for over 400 guests. I am really proud and happy this project went well and got excellent feedback not only from the client but also from guests and the prestigious Austrian catering company that catered for the three course wedding dinner.

Below are some pictures from the event and some African style canapé options.

Some of the recipes for the canapé options can be found on my blog by following the link below. http://ninascookerycorner.blogspot.co.uk/

Feast your eyes on the dishes and don’t forget to like share and comment.

Also, if you’re planning an event, dinner party and want the burden of cooking off your hands, why not let me be your super hero and cater to your needs. Enjoy reading try out the dishes and send me your feedback. Aprons on! 

Olehleh

Plain olehleh with spicy sauce

Gizzard stew and Plantain

Chicken Gizzard and Plantain. An NCC speciality

Akara

Akara and spicy garnished sauce.

Tasty Fish fritters that would make your tongue smile.

Fish Balls

Fishy Fishy Fish balls

Kibbeh with red pepper olive garnish

“Awojoh” Feasting

Spread of delicious West African party food

Hello Readers, it’s been awhile since my last post and I feel like I have neglected you guys. My apologies. I am sure you are all doing fantastic. So I did my first catering gig this weekend and it was a very good experience and I am happy I took up the challenge as it was an impromptu request and I was a bit hesitant to accept it.

I had a week to sort out shopping and prep for 4 main dishes and 3 accompaniments for about 100 guests. With the help of my amazing family and friends I pulled it off.

“Awojoh” - loosely translated, community feast to celebrate the life of the deceased.

In Sierra Leone, as a tradition, an Awojoh takes place after the 40^th day or the one year anniversary of a deceased person. The common dishes for this sort of occasion are “aborbor” (Black eyed beans stew) with fried plantain, sweet potato fried in palm oil, beans akara, olehleh, foofoo with a vareity of soups and palm oil fry stew. Some of the recipes of the above could be found by clicking here. 

Nina's Cookery Corner 

On this occasion however, most of the traditional dishes were not prepared as the client opted for the more common party dishes.
The menu was;

Jollof Rice

Fry Stew

Fried Rice

Rice Sticks (Vermicelli)

Pepper Chicken

Fried Plantain and

Akara

All the recipes for the above dishes can be found on my blog by following the link below. http://ninascookerycorner.blogspot.co.uk/

Feast your eyes on the dishes and hope you get to replicate them.

If you’re planning an event, dinner party and want the burden of cooking off your hands, why not let me be your super hero and cater to your needs. Enjoy reading try out the dishes and send me your feedback. Aprons on!

Spread of delicious West African party food

Akara Waffles (Valentine Treat)

Scrumptious Akara Waffle 

Happy Valentine’s day! So this week I decided to experiment on West Africa’s favourite dumpling “Akara” I tweaked the recipe by adding fresh milk and vanilla extract to make it into a dessert option. Topped with juicy strawberries and blueberries and a scoop of vanilla ice cream, the result was heavenly. Who would have thought aye?

Hope you get to try this recipe as it’s well scrumptious and yummy.

Aprons on!

Ingredients 

Makes 10-12 waffles

Ingredients

1. 2 cups of rice flour
2. 6  of extra ripe bananas
3. ½ cup whole or semi skimmed milk
4. 1Nutmeg
5. 1 extracted vanilla pod
6. ½ cup Sugar
7. 1 teaspoon baking powder
8. 30ml olive oil

Dry ingredients in mixing bowl

Cooking Instructions

1.      Peel bananas and blend until smooth and runny

2.      Add dry ingredients into mixing bowl and mix together.

3.      Then add wet ingredients into the same bowl and whisk vigorously together until smooth.

mixture in waffle maker

4.      Switch your waffle maker on and follow its instructions on how to use. Once it is hot pour the mixture into each section and let it cook until it ready (approximately 2 minutes for each batch)  

Yummy dessert

Okra Soup “Wait Okra and FooFoo"

Okra and foofoo

Hello NCC readers! Hope your weekend was fab! Another “Satiday foofoo post” In Sierra Leone Saturday is foofoo day. Most households will make this dish to have for lunch on Saturday and then on Sunday morning before heading to their church service. In today’s post I opted for okra soup. Okra can be cooked with or without palm oil, blended onions, scotch peppers, ogiri (fermented sesame seed paste) assorted meat of your choice and smoked fish. For a foofoo dish, I prefer without palm oil and I usually have the palm oil version with rice.

Foofoo is made from cassava and is one of my favorite African dishes. It is made from fermented cassava that is later on, cooked and molded into a dough-like consistency ball.

Hope you get to try this dish. Aprons on!

Ingredients

Ingredients

2 dozen fresh okra

1 packet of Foofoo

3 medium sized onions

3 scotch peppers or enough to your tolerance

1  packs of ogiri

Assorted meat (pig foot, oxtail, smoked broiler chicken)

Smoked fish

Maggie season

Salt

Cooking Instructions

Serving for 4

Chopped Okra

Okra Soup

1.            Wash and chop okra into small chunks and put aside.

2.            Bring your meats to boil for about an hour or as soft as you want it to be.

Boiling pot with blended ogiri

3.            Meanwhile blend onions and scotch pepper with ogiri and dry shrimps. This should look like a thick paste.

4.            Add the above mixture to the boiled meat and add 2 pints of water then leave the pot to boil for 30 minutes or until you have a thick soup consistency.

5.            Add 1 maggie cube seasoning and two pinches of salt to taste.

6.            Add the Okra and let the pot boil for about 10 minutes to allow the okra to cook. Leave the pot open whilst it boils until the okra is cooked.

7.            Finally add smoked fish and turn the heat low and let the pot cook for a further 5 minutes and the sauce is ready for serving. 

Foo Foo

1.              Add water to foofoo paste and mix with hand into a thick runny consistency.

Sieving foofoo 

2.              Sieve the foofoo to remove chaff.

3.              Leave this to settle for about an hour or a day before if time permits

4.              Strain off the surplus water and bring foo foo to cook on a low heat.

5.              Keep mixing the foo foo until it thickens into a hard dough

6.              Add about a handful of water to the pot. Cover and leave the dough to cook by steam.

Voila! Dish is done!  

Finished dish

Okra Soup

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

Chippy Chirpy! (Fish and Chips)

Fish and Chips

Fish and chips, the signature English dish that I became obsessed with during my second year at university. In today’s post I decided to put a West African twist to this dish making a hot pepper sauce to compliment the fish. Sierra Leone has vast variety of fresh water and deep sea fishes that locals enjoy on a daily basis. Whether it’s fried or grilled, with a side of the hot pepper sauce garnished with lemon or lime wedge, fish can be have with plantains, chips, rice and salads. Like most of my dishes, today’s post is quick and easy to prepare. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully try out the recipe. Aprons on!!!

Ingredient

1.                     200g fresh Sea Bass  

2.                     4  Medium potatoes

3.                     2 cloves of garlic

4.                     1 lime

5.                     2 large onions

6.                     3 scotch bonnet pepper

7.                     1tinned chopped tomato

8.                     Maggie seasoning

9.                     Olive  

Ingredients

Pan fried Sea Bass

Cooking Instructions

Sea Bass

1.                  Fillet Sea Bass and season with sea salt, black pepper corn and thyme.

2.                  Pan fry the fillets 3 minutes on skin side and 2 minutes on flesh side. As soon as it goes in press each fillet down with fingers or fish slice to stop the fillet from curling and also to get crispy skin.

Deep frying chips

Chips

1.                  Peel potatoes and cut into chunky slices.

2.                  Deep fry until golden brown.

Pepper Stew

Hot pepper sauce

1. Slice onions and blend with scotch peppers, garlic and chopped tomato finely
2. Heat 50ml of olive oil in a pot.
3. Once heated fry blended scotch peppers, garlic and chopped tomato in low heat for 5 minutes constantly stirring it.
4. Sprinkle a pinch of salt and a Maggie cube.
5. Leave to cook for a further 5 minutes and then dish is ready for serving.

Voila! Dish is done! 

Fish and Chips West African Style