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! 

Coconut Oil Black-eyed Beans Stew

Beans Stew

Hello All! Hope you all had a blessed Easter and enjoyed munching and nibbling on food and Easter treats with your friends and family.

As tradition goes on Good Friday to honour the death of Jesus Christ, Sierra Leoneans refrain from eating meat. Instead meals with fish are prepared for the day. As the current health craze is coconut oil, I decided to make Black-eyed Pea stew with coconut oil and smoked catfish. Follow the steps below to recreate this delish dish. Aprons on!

Ingredients

Serving for 4

Ingredients

·         2 large red onions

·         2 cups of Black-eyed Peas

·         100ml coconut oil

·         4 cloves for garlic

·         Hand bunch of basil

·         2 scotch pepper

·         1 maggie cube

1.      Wash and bring to beans to boil until soft approximately 30-45 min

2.      Peel and slice onions lengthwise

3.      Blend half of the onions with scotch peppers, garlic and basil into a paste.

4.      Soak the catfish over night to get a soft texture.

Maggie in stew

  5.      Pour about 100ml of oil into hot sauce pan and heat to cooking temperature.

  6.      Once oil is heated, fry sliced onions and blended paste for like 5 minutes

   7.      Add fish and let the stew cook for another 10 minutes

   8.      Add maggie cube and two pinches of salt for flavour.

   9.      Add boil beans to the pot with fried stew. Mix together and turn the heat low and let the pot simmer for 10-15 minutes or until all the extra water from the stew has evaporated and you have a really dry stew.

Ready for serving

Plantain Fritters

Plantain Fritters

Happy New NCC readers! Thank you all for continuously checking out my blog, Facebook page and your emails about questions regarding my recipes your support is really appreciated and I am always delighted to answer any questions. Hope your year started well and I wish you the very best for 2016.

So I came across a recipe for “plantain mosa” a popular Nigerian street food made with over ripped plantains. With a slight twist omitting the yeast that makes the mosa puffy, I made plantain fritters instead served and with prawns smeared in hot chilli sauce . Follow the simple recipe below to try this delicious fritter. Aprons on!!!

Serving for 4

Ingredients

Ingrdients

4 over ripped plantains

3 stalk of spring onions

1 scotch bonnet pepper

2 eggs

Coconut milk powder

Flour

Baking powder

Ginger

Garlic

Salt

Cooking oil

Directions

1.      Peel and mash plantain in a mixing bowl using fork

2.      Finely chop spring onions and pepper and add to bowl  

3.      Add half a tea spoon grated garlic and ginger

4.      Beat eggs and pour into bowl

5.      Add a tea spoon of coconut milk powder, with a 4 table spoons of plain flour, a pinch of salt and baking powder

Add caption

6.      Mix all the ingredients and let it sit for 5 minutes

7.      Preheat oil in frying pan

                     

Mixture ready for frying

8.      Once the oil is heated, scoop the mixture using serving spoon and add to oil to fry fritters until brown. 

9.      Once fried, place fried fritters on paper towel to drain any excess oil.

Frying frittes

Voila! Dish is done!

Delicious Dish 

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

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

Kañiwa/“Foondae” with Grilled Chicken and Spinach Stew

Kaniwa/"Foondae" with Grilled Chicken and Spinach stew

Hello Readers! So last week, a friend sent me an article posted by Mail Online UK ranking countries with the best and worst diets. Sierra Leone was 2^nd on the table for the countries with the healthiest diets overall. The smile on my face, broaden like the Grinch’s smile with an exciting idea.

This week’s post was inspired by the Mail Online’s article; Kañiwa/“Foondae” with Grilled Chicken and Spinach Stew. I am convinced Kañiwa is “Foondae” – not sure about spelling). “Foondae”/ Kañiwa is used as a healthy substitute for rice in Sierra Leone. From my online research I learnt it is a cousin of quinoa, or some call it baby quinoa as it is a really tiny grain. Like quinoa, it is a "pseudo-cereal" with a high level of protein (15 to 19 percent) and a more complete balance of amino acids than most grains. (Source- http://wholegrainscouncil.org/whole-grains-101/whole-grains-a-to-z)

Both of the main ingredients in this post are super healthy. Spinach is full of iron, protein, vitamins and minerals which are good for your vision, skin, and hair. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully get to try out this recipe. Aprons on!!!

Serving for 4

Ingredients 

Ingredients

A pack of spinach
2 cups of Kañiwa grains
4 medium sized chicken thighs
2 medium sized onions
2 Scotch bonnet peppers
6 cherry tomatoes
50ml olive oil
Maggie seasoning
Chicken seasoning
Black and white, pepper
Teaspoon mixed herbs
1 tinned chopped
Tomato purée 

Cooking Instructions

Spinach Stew

Grilling chicken and cherry tomatoes

1.      Wash and season chicken with chicken seasoning, black and white, pepper

2.      Then grill chicken in a grill pan, 5 minutes on each side on medium heat.

3.      Grill cherry tomato as well 1min on each side and put aside with chicken as this would be used later to garnish the dish.

4.      Slice onions slices lengthwise.

5.       Pre-heat 50ml olive oil in a pot on medium heat.

6.      Then fry onions and chopped tinned tomatoes also adding a teaspoon of mixed herbs and tomato puree into the pot and fry in medium heat for 5 - 10 minutes or until tender

  7.      Put spinach in a big bowl and pour a kettle of hot water over it and leave it to cook by steam for 2 min.

  8.      Drain water from the bowl; using a colander getting rid of all excess water.

  9.      Then stir the drained spinach into the stew. Leave it to simmer in medium heat for about 5 min then add your grilled chicken to the stew.

  10.  Finally leave the stew to cook for further 5 min and your stew is ready.

Frying onions and chopped tomatoes

Spinach added to stew 

Dish Almost done

Kañiwa/“Foondae”

1.      Boil 700ml of water in a pot

2.      Wash “Foondae”/ Kañiwa and add to boiling water with a pinch of salt.

3.      Leave to cook in low heat for about 20 -25min checking it at 5 min intervals.

4.      Should you need to sprinkle a handful of water over the kañiwa if the grain are still uncooked. 

Kaniwa/"Foondae" with Grilled Chicken and Spinach stew