I love to repurpose things in the kitchen – whether its turning zobo flowers into sauce after making an infusion or making a crumble with leftover tigernut chaff from making kunnu aya, the milk. It works. Rather beautifully too. Here’s what you have to do. Take your favourite crumble recipe and switch it up a bit...
I’ve been exploring making jellies with Nigerian fruits, flowers and nuts. My first attempt – a tiger nut pudding was beautiful, if soft set. It triggered a desire to make a panna cotta of tiger nuts, helped along by gelatine. Then came the agbalumo jelly which while great had a funny texture thanks to agar-agar....
Desserts & Presentation – two ways in which we should progress Nigerian cuisine :). This week, I will focus on Nigerian desserts. And yes, I dare say we have a class of them, if budding. Truth is, dessert for a long time was fruit salad (with milk), ice cream and cake. Enter The New Nigerian...
..Or how the star apple and it’s monikers got their names, from star apple to milky breasts to ‘vagina’ fruit … Star Apple For the pattern you see when you cut a cross section through the fruit, due to the arrangement of the seeds which cluster into a five point star. One of the most...
Fresh Cashews, pitanga cherries, mulberries, carrots, agbalumo, mangoes…these are a few things in seasons Cashews/ Cashew Apple Woo hoo, sooooooooooo happy to get my hands on some. Which I plan to juice, bake and do a host of other things. We shall see. Mulberries At least in the North of Nigeria, they’re in season. I...
The idea that we are as much the same as we are different is what slays me about food, what binds my heart to the cause of eating, feasting, of discovery. That though we are set apart by seas and oceans, by mountains and plains, valleys, plateaus, essentially we are the same – we eat the same...
Did you know that Chicle, the milky juice or latex found in Agbalumo and other relatives was for a long time, the foundation of all chewing gums? Chewing gum Yes, if you are able to get past the bitterness, chewing the latex-rich skin and sap will yield great delights. So yes, chicle and things cf. Chiclets. Pectin...
I loved learning how to make Fura and couldn’t wait to combine it with white chocolate and bananas. Nono is made from fresh milk soured with a bit of curdled milk, similar to using yogurt as a starter in a fresh batch. Fermentation happens over a day or two; Fura is made from millet, cooked...
Lool, if you are tired of me and my Agbalumo experiments, imma have to ask you to step aside for a minute or two because there’s more. I’ve been wanting to make this posset since I first realised how acidic Agbalumo was. How it curdled milk. Yep, this has been in my plan for a year...