Hibiscus: Discover Fresh Flavours from West Africa with the Observer Rising Star of Food 2017. Lope Ariyo
AND MANGO SLAW
Fennel isn’t often used in Nigerian cooking, but I’ve included it in this slaw because I like how its texture contrasts with the mango. The dressing is made from egusi, which is more typically used in soups to add flavour and as a thickening agent, such as Egusi Soup (Obe Egusi). You can make the dressing with green pumpkin seeds or ground almonds instead but the flavour will be slightly different, albeit equally as tasty.
PREP TIME: 15 MINS
COOKING TIME: 5 MINS
SERVES: 4
2 fennel bulbs
2 mangoes, peeled, pitted
and chopped
FOR THE GRAPEFRUIT EGUSI DRESSING
juice of 1/2 red grapefruit
4 tbsp coconut nectar or honey
1 shallot, finely chopped
1 tbsp ground egusi seeds or ground almonds
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp groundnut oil
First, make the dressing. In a small mixing bowl, combine all the ingredients, whisk together well and set aside.
Fill a large saucepan with water and bring to the boil. Cut the stalks off the fennel bulbs and discard them. Halve the fennel bulbs and cut out their cores. Finely slice, then cook in the boiling water for 3 minutes. Drain the fennel in a colander and rinse with cold water. Add the fennel and chopped mangoes to a large bowl and toss to combine.
To serve, pour the dressing over the fennel and mango, and toss until evenly coated. Plate the salad and enjoy.
HASSELBACK PLANTAINS WITH MUSHROOM STEAK
Ogede Inakuna (Yoruba)
Plantains were such a regular fixture in our kitchen when I was younger that they almost became part of the decor. We had them every other day – I couldn’t get enough. My mum would top and tail them, score their skins and peel off their jackets before frying them as slivers in oil. This is how I liked them – the perfect marriage of fluffy potato and sweet banana. When I first started cooking plantain myself, I’d stand, spatula in one hand and lid in the other, like a Roman soldier fighting a hissing battle in the frying pan. I’d always add too much oil and use overripe plantains but I soon learnt my lesson. Since then, I’ve experimented lots with this versatile ingredient and this recipe plays with a new way of eating plantains – cut hasselback-style and baked.
PREP TIME: 15 MINS
COOKING TIME: 35 MINS
SERVES: 4
FOR THE HASSELBACK PLANTAINS
2 tbsp coconut oil, melted
4 yellow plantains, peeled and halved widthways
1 tbsp garri
4 tsp onion granules
2 tsp dried thyme
salt and black pepper
blanched kale, to serve
FOR THE MUSHROOM STEAK
1 tbsp palm wine vinegar or white wine vinegar
4 tbsp groundnut oil
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp paprika
1 tsp roasted peanut flour
seeds from 2 uda pods, (optional)
4 portobello mushrooms
Preheat the oven to 180°C/Gas 4. Add the coconut oil to a roasting tray and place in the oven to heat up.
Slice a thin strip lengthways off each of the plantain halves; this flat base helps to ensure that they don’t roll around while baking. Make a series of evenly spaced cuts, a couple of millimetres apart, along the length of the plantain, stopping roughly halfway down so that the slices remain attached at the bottom.
Transfer the plantains to the heated roasting tray, flat side down. Brush all over with the coconut oil and sprinkle with the garri, onion granules, thyme, salt and pepper. Place in the preheated oven to bake for 30 minutes, checking every so often to make sure they aren’t burning. If the plantains are browning too quickly, cover them loosely with foil. Once they are golden and cooked through, remove them from the oven.
Place a frying pan over a medium heat. Working quickly, whisk together the vinegar, groundnut oil, garlic powder, ginger, paprika, peanut flour and the seeds of the uda pods, if using, in a small bowl. Brush the top and bottom of the mushrooms with the marinade and fry for 2–3 minutes on each side until softened, before placing on the plates with the plantain. Drizzle over any leftover marinade and serve hot with blanched kale.
Okeles are the preferred dish of most Nigerians and in some sense can be seen as the West African answer to pasta. The English translation of okele is ‘swallow’, because it doesn’t need to be chewed – rather, you let it melt in your mouth and then gulp it down.
The beginning stages of making an okele are similar to that of preparing choux pastry, but okele requires additional steaming. The process of repeatedly steaming and beating the okele does two things. Firstly, it ensures it is cooked through and develops the flavour of the okele, so that it doesn’t taste like you’re eating a flour paste. Secondly, it develops the starch that makes okele characteristically stretchy and sticky – without the constant beating and steaming, that starch doesn’t become active.
The most common ingredients used to make okele are rice, yams, cassava or plantain, and there are two varieties: Fufu (the most popular) and Amala, which differ primarily according to how their base ingredients are prepared. Fufu usually range from pure white to off-white and their consistency varies depending on how much liquid is used – generally, for soft Fufu, there should be four times as much liquid to flour. Amala range in colour from mustard yellow to grey-brown.
On its own, an okele can be pretty bland; for that reason, Nigerians take great pride in pairing it with a combination of soups to really bring it alive. The traditional way to eat an okele is by scooping some of it by the fingers, rolling it into a ball and then coating it in the desired soup. Okele can be quite heavy so is best eaten at lunchtime, rather than for dinner.
Here are two of my go-to recipes. Eba is the easiest and fastest okele to make. It’s a common weekday meal in Nigeria and great if you’re trying to eat well on a budget or are craving something tummy-hugging and heartwarming. It’s made from dried cassava (garri) which tastes like sourdough and contains coarse granules, making eba slightly less smooth in