It is difficult to think of cassava as a recent import to Nigeria (and Africa) because much of its cuisine today is based on the tuber in different forms. From snacks of boiled cassava with coconut – popular street food; kpokpogari – coarse, hard biscuits of cassava fibre from which all the starch has been...
I love making hash – great for combining starches, meat, vegetables and sauce, all in one pan. I employed my cassava chunks in this recipes, along with suya of tripe – shaki to Nigerians. I got the ‘book’ shaki, known as Bible. Manifold. Onigbawe, in Yoruba. For the ‘pages’ it has. I love how expressive...
I’ve eaten cassava products all my life but I’d never tasted the cooked/ boiled tuber till last weekend. It is an interesting combination of starchy and chewy and a taste that isn’t as distinctive as I expected. What it looks like Think long tubers, about 20 – 30cm with tough brown skins bearing some resemblance...
The truth is when I happen upon a new ingredient, I like to explore as much as I can. So I’ve done the soup and the salad and this time, it’s the deep-fried chips. I figured that would work better than roasted but that’ll be explored as well. Here, I deep-fried the chips for a...
With my huge batch of cooked cassava chips, I wondered what else I could do. I considered making Aipim, a traditional Brazilian cake – dense, moist and apparently delicious. We, after all share histories of food and more with them. However, I wasn’t sure my cassava was of the right texture, as it was in...
My obsession with re-imagining Nigerian cuisine often begins with street food. The end? Dishes with de- and re-constructed ingredients, new techniques applied to familiar flavours and more. Last August, I discovered cooked cassava shreds/ chips, also called Bobozi, Mbrakasi in the east and south of Nigeria. This popular street snack is sold with chunks of fresh coconut. This version sold...
First published in 2019. Intro photo changed in 2023 to update the name of Amolili (Nigerian Date Syrup) to Amoriri (Nigerian Black Plum Syrup) It’s difficult to think of cassava as a recent import to Nigeria because much of its classic cuisine is based on the tuber in different forms. From snacks of boiled cassava...
#PandemicPantry: A pantry set up to provide health, nutrition, sustenance during a situation/ period with constraints on movement for extended periods. I would never have imagined writing this, living through this, living in a time when the whole, entire world is gripped by the Coronavirus/ COVID-19. I’ve always wanted to write about the Nigerian pantry...
Vote Nominate Kitchen Butterfly people :)! (Voting comes after nomination 🙂 Vote Nominate me – your favorite blog in the 9th annual SAVEUR Blog Awards because Nigerian food deserves all the accolades, deserves to go global, has such historical significance which the world needs to know, hear about, fall in love with. Who: https://www.kitchenbutterfly.com What: The Annual Saveur...