‘Nigerian Seasonal Produce’ is a monthly column which will be published on the last Saturday of every month. In this column, a writer explores a specific seasonal fruit, vegetable or leafy green assigned by the editors of Kitchen Butterfly and based on the Nigerian Seasonal Produce Calendar. Our author this month is Osemhen of Eureka Naija –...
There are many reasons I love technology and social media – hashtags are one of them. Hashtags are the strongest indication that we are similar in all the ways we are different. A few months ago, I hashtagged a photo on instagram, #starapple and then I clicked on it and discovered a whole world out...
My Aunt would make this when we visited them in Benin – potatoes, chicken, boiled eggs, curry powder, carrots and always green peppers. I’ve learnt well and make this often. My children LOVE it, as do I for a quick, easy and good-looking chicken-in-sauce- dish. I like to think of Sunday afternoons as the perfect...
This is about Yemisi Aribisala and her brilliant book – Longthroat Memoirs: Soups, Sex and Nigerian Taste Buds which I’ve thoroughly enjoyed reading. I’ve also had the great pleasure of asking Yemisi some questions – which she graciously answers. I first ‘met’ Yemisi in 2010, 2011 – online, in the words she penned in FOOD MATTERS on 234NEXT....
‘Being a Nigerian is very hard. The country is in a recession. Our government makes us tired. We are always angry. We are always in traffic (well, those of us for whom Lagos is Nigeria); Amanda‘ Oh my days – I had to ask Amanda, my friend to write about her total lack of reverence...
It’s really my peanutty red amaranth saute blitzed. Read: Peanutty red amaranth saute No more, no less. I saw a beetroot sauce on Masterchef Australia and essentially triggered this – this sauce that has the hue of beetroot and its earthiness but is a snap to prep. Sautee the Nigerian trinity – tomatoes, onions and chilies –...
Food pairing – combining ingredients with others that are really similar (positive) or really different (negative). Cuisines are defined by ingredients, shaped by influences – what grows around you, your climate, who has been in your space. Legacies of colonisation, of slave trade make it to the plate today – from Lagos to Bahia and...
Dishes are all about balance, all about a ‘perfect’ combination and complementing of the elements – flavours, tastes, colours and aromas should work together in delivering a dish – that awakes every sense. Sometimes balance is in the seasoning, other times, it is in the cooking of it and sometimes it’s in the service of it....
Nigerian cuisine is aromatic and pungent, full of umami, smoky, spicy, bitter and sour flavours which produce complex tasting dishes. In many dishes, the depth of flavour is provided by smoked, fishy and fermented elements. In many ways, the predominant flavours in our dishes – umami, smoky, spicy – are different from those in other cuisines. To...