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...
It all began with a Facebook conversation about stirfried periwinkles…And it ended well – friends wondered if periwinkles could be stirfried and I thought, why not try. But first, blue foods. I’ve always been intrigued by the coplour of periwinkles – that vibrant almost-turquoise that isn’t common at the table. I remember once, a few...
My mission in The New Nigerian Kitchen has many dimensions. It encompasses the totality, the entirety of Nigerian cuisine – from language to preservation of culinary history and heritage, and everything in between. We have to put words to our food, understand them for that’s one of the key ways we’ll be able to explain to others...
The Concept The concept here is of ‘truffles’. Like Chocolate truffles but not… A chocolate truffle is a type of chocolate confectionery, traditionally made with a chocolate ganache centre coated in chocolate, cocoa powder or chopped toasted nuts (typically hazelnuts,almonds or coconut), usually in a spherical, conical, or curved shape. Their name derives from their traditional...