Best-ever Puff-Puff Party

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Last weekend, I had a puff-puff party. It was the best puff-puff party I’d ever had. Been to.

The only one too :).

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Anchored by the fact that my puff-puff game had improved considerably in a week of making it three times, and a comment J, my daughter made about said fried dough, I gathered a veritable force of ten plus ladies to feast.

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I love the idea of exploring one ingredient or dish, be it Agbalumo or Mango, and in this case puff-puff. And what better way to discover borders and combinations than celebrating the very thing.

On the subject of fried dough, this wasn’t one where I wanted to journey alone. I needed palates and eyes and mouths to tell me the faves.

I wanted to go sweet and savoury and so I prepared a number of variations on the theme. We had sweet plain puff-puff, and puff-puff flavoured with coconut milk and lemongrass extract. We had some of dried fruit soaked in liqueur, much like olieballen. We had sweetcorn, chili and basil puff-puff.

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And the sides, oh boy, the sides were the most awesome bits:

Zobo pepper sauce

Dambu nama from kilishi 

Suya from Glover Court and Port Harcourt

Suya spice combined with sugar for a sweet and pepper dip

Beef pepper sauce

Cinnamon sugar and what else?

Ehm, not sure.

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The party began about 3pm.

The dough for the puff-puff? Made about 12.30pm. In an hour, they’d risen good and proper in the (not-lit) oven and I began the task of frying.

One of the challenges of keeping puff-puff from browning uniformly is the buoyancy of the puff-puff. There is a preferential desire for one side to brown. The key to overcoming? Filling the pan full of puff-puff so they’re boxed in with little room to move and stay turned when you flip.

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I fried the plain and dried fruit batches first and put in a cooler with the lid ajar, so they stayed warm but didn’t get wet.

When the guests arrived, and while they feasted on plantain chips and my beloved scent leaf dip, I fried up the others – coconut milk & lemongrass; and the sweetcorn.

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We had some stuffed with mango and passionfruit sauce. Oh Lawd…and Zobo cordial and Zobo pepper sauce.

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And then we ate, and ate and ate and talked and laughed and generally gisted.

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It was a lovely way to spend a Sunday. With gorgeous-hearted women…

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…and children.

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What would you serve at your puff-puff party?

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