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!  

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

“Granat Soup” (Peanut Butter Soup)

“Granat Soup” with steamed Rice (Peanut Butter Soup)

Hello NCC readers! Peanut Butter Soup, I like to call this my lazy dish. It is my quick easy guilty pleasure dish. It can be prepared as a sauce/stew or a soup. In today’s post I prepared it as a soup which goes well with steamed rice. The difference is with the stew/sauce the ingredients have to be slightly fried whilst with the soup the cooking method is mainly boiling from start to finish. I used smoked broiler chicken, turkey neck, oxtail and snapper fish to compliment the sweet flavour of the peanut butter however; any meat or fish of your liking can be used. 

As with most of my dishes, this dish is perfect as main course for lunch or dinner. I hope you enjoy reading and hopefully try out the recipe. Aprons on!!!

Ingredients

Ingredients 

1. Jar of smooth Peanut butter (4 table spoon scoops)
2. Half smoked broiler chicken
3. ½ kg turkey neck
4. ½ kg oxtail
5. Two fresh snapper
6. 3 medium size onions
7. 2 Red bell peppers
8. 2 scotch peppers
9. Spring onions
10. Fresh thyme
11. Seasoning (black pepper, all purpose, garlic powder, mixed dry herbs and maggie cube)
12. 1 tinned chopped tomato
13. Tomato puree 

Serving for 4

 

Cooking Instructions

Granat Soup (Peanut Butter Soup)

 

1.      Cut all your meats into sizeable pieces of your choice then, wash thoroughly.

2.      Do the same with the snapper and season with fish seasoning.

3.      Bring the meats to boil with 1 liter water for 20 minutes.

4.      Chop onions, bell peppers and spring onions. Add to the pot of boiling meats 

Vegetables boiling away

5.      Blend one onion with 2 scotch peppers. Also add this to the pot with the chopped tomato.

6.      Scoop 4 table spoonful of peanut butter into 200ml water. Mixed this to loosen the paste to make into a liquid like consistency then add this to the boiling pot of vegetables.

Peanut butter paste mixture

7.      Add seasoning, maggie cube, a pinch of salt for flavour, about 4 stems of fresh thyme and tea spoon full of tomato puree to give the soup colour. Mix the pot and taste to the soup. Add more seasoning if you need to.

8.      Leave soup to boil for a further 20 minutes.

9.      Finally, turn the heat low then add the fish and let the soup cook for a further 10 minutes in slow cooking.

A taste of West Africa

Voila! Dish is done!  

Delicious Dish