Sa Lone style Butter scotch candy

Homemade Butter Scotch Candy

Good Evening guys! I hope you all had a splendid weekend. Today is one of those days I feel nostalgic and have a sweet tooth. What best way to curb this craving than whip up some homemade butter scotch. Butter scotch is a popular treat to have as a snack when that sweet tooth carving kicks in. Growing up in Sierra Leone this snack was a lunch and after school treat that I enjoyed indulging in with no guilt.

Preparing butter scotch is every simple and easy. You only need two ingredients butter and sweetened condensed milk. The only tricky bit is the moulding stage. You have to be quick at moulding the candy into mini balls before it hardens up.  You have a window of about 10 to 15 minutes.

Ingredients

1.      150 g unsalted butter

2.      379 g of sweetened condensed milk

Ingredients 

Method

Stirring butter and milk in medium heat

     1.      Before you start, have a bowl of water and about 2 table spoon of either melted butter or vegetable oil and a large plate ready and aside.

      2.      Melt 125 g of butter in a cooking pot in medium heat.

     3.      Pour sweetened condensed milk into melted butter.

     4.      Use wooden spoon to mix butter and milk together until you have soft golden brown gooey consistency.

     5.      Turn heat off and let the mixture set for at least a minute then start moulding into mini balls. BE EXTREMELY CAUTIOUS! The candy will still be piping hot.

      6.      Rub some oil or butter in your palm then using table spoon scoop tiny portions of the candy and mould into round mini balls. Use water in bowl to cool your hands as you go along. Repeat this step until you mould all the candy.

      7.      Depending on how small you mould the balls you should have about 15-20 pieces.

Homemade Butter Scotch Candy

Voila! Be prepared to satisfy your sweet tooth cravings.

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!

Pepper Soup

Pepper Soup and Red Snapper

Good Evening readers, Hope you all had an amazing weekend. I spent mine nursing a cold with the versatile West African dish Pepper Soup! Pepper soup is a popular dish across West African mostly drank towards the end of parties whilst guests banter and converse about their interests. It is also an excellent remedy for cold and flu. It clears the flu in an instance, the spicier the soup the better. Across the region its cooked quite similarly with either, assorted meat (goat, beef, cow foot, broiler chicken, pig feet, etc) or fish. I opted for red snapper and added potatoes as an accompaniment. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully try out the recipe. Aprons on!!!

Ingredients

Serving for 4

Ingredients 

1.      4 Scotch Pepper

2.      2 medium sized onions

3.      1 huge potato

4.      2 medium Red Snapper

5.      1 tea spoon tomato puree

6.      1 maggie cube

7.      Sea salt and rosemary seasoning

Cooking Instructions

Boiling soup

1.      Cut each snapper into two pieces and season with sea salt and rosemary.

2.      Peel potato and cut into sizeable cubes and place in sauce pan.

3.      Blend onions with scotch peppers and add this to the sauce pan with the chopped potatoes.

4.      Add 1 litter of water to the pot and bring to boil.

5.      Add maggie cube, half a teaspoon of sea salt tomato puree to give the soup a slight reddish colour. Mix the pot and taste. Add more maggie if you need to.

6.      Let the pot boil for a 25 minutes then, add fish plus half a cup of water and turn the heat low and let the pot boil for a further 5-10 minutes slow cooking the rest of the soup.

perfect remedy

 Voila! Dish is done! 

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

Shepherd’s Pie Sunday

Shepherd's Pie "Hachis Paramentier version"

Good evening Reader’s! Happy New Month! Comfort foods are guilty pleasure we can’t resist. The good old British Shepherd’s Pie is one hearty comfort food that I happily indulge in with no shame. With an African twist of seasoning (maggie cube, steak seasoning, black & white pepper and blended garlic and scotch bonnet pepper) and very hot spice, I used the French version “Hachis Paramentier” to prepare this tasty dish. This dish goes well with a glass of red wine. Hope you get to try out this recipe Aprons on!

Ingredients 

Ingredients

1. Pack of lean diced beef 450g
2. 4 medium potatoes
3. 2 carrots medium carrots
4. Handful of cherry tomato
5. 1 medium size onions
6. 4 cloves of garlic
7. 3 scotch peppers
8. Seasoning (maggie cube, steak seasoning, black & white pepper and blended garlic and scotch bonnet pepper) 
9. Olive Oil
10. Tomato puree
11. Tin of Evaporated
12. Block of mature cheddar cheese  
13. Chive for garnish

Serving for 4

Cooking Instructions

Carrots and potatoes about to be mashed

Mash

1. Peel potatoes and carrots
2. Chop into large sizes.
3. Boil carrots for 40 minutes and potatoes for 30 minutes
4. Once boiled put in a large bowl
5. Add 2 table spoons of evaporated milk (this will give the mash creamy fluffy consistency) and a pinch of salt. 

Sauté Beef

Stew

1.      Wash and season beef with seasoning mentioned above

2.      Slice onions sideways and cut cherry tomatoes in two

3.      Pour 30 ml olive oil into hot frying pan and heat to cooking temperature.

4.      Once oil is heated, add beef, onions and tomatoes and sauté for 10 minutes

5.      Added 2 squeezes of tomato puree, mix then leave to cook for a further 10 minutes in medium heat.

6.      Preheat oven at 180C degrees gas mark 4.

7.      Before serving sprinkle some grated cheese over the mash and put in the oven for 10 minutes or until slightly golden. 

Shepherd's Pie "Hachis Paramentier version"

Voila! Dish is done!