The New Yam festival is a harvest festival celebrated across Nigeria and many parts of Africa. When I made Ofe Nsala, my Igbo friends mentioned that this was the perfect soup to feast on in the village square during iwaji/ irijiohuru, which celebrates the start of the harvest season. I think one should praise God,...
Happy Father’s Day, Daddy. To the one who taught be about life, and death. Who always ate Pounded Yam on Sundays. Freshly pounded to the rhythm of Sunday afternoons and pestles. To the one whose love for me was second to none. If you were here, I would have cooked you a feast, set a glorious...
And just from the sound of it, you know this is a hit. Right? Snails, chopped up in the blender, pan fried with boiled (fresh or leftover) yam chunks turned golden from sauteeing. Add a pepper sauce ’cause snails and ‘pepper’ go great and vegetables… and let the one pot do its wonders. For some...
Because they aren’t quite matchsticks. If you’ve ever had and loved Potato matchsticks, this will be up your street. My original plan was to have this topping a beef suya salad with iru a few weeks ago. Courage failed me on adding iru to the salad but the yam was delicious. I started off with slices of...
…in the manner of the Tortilla Espanol or Spanish Omelette – an egg-based dish made with potatoes. To be honest, I almost always do a like for like, swapping yam for potatoes. Sometimes, it works well – like in waffles, and hashes and what nots and sometimes we have to think about it a bit...
This has to be one of my greatest discoveries of 2014 – that frying boiled yam, cut up in little chunks is an adventure in textures. A couple of months ago, my children wanted fried yam but what we had was boiled. So I lightly greased a pan, seasoned the yam and fried away. The results? Golden...
I’m a yam fan – fried, pounded, roasted – all and every way. I’m a fan of waffles. Plain, with squash and pumpkin, many ways. And then…why not Yam waffles. 1. one/ a good way to use leftover boiled yam (another is in a hash…awesome) 2. an exploration
Travel by Plate is a series exploring food, culture and travel, from Nigeria to South America and beyond. Please welcome my friend, the wonderful Adetoun of Finding Uhuru who wrote this post. A few weeks ago, I cried out on Twitter, desperately seeking someone, anyone who’d been to Saminaka in my yaji-craze, someone who had experienced the piping hot...
A night-time conversation with D, my 6-year old has brought me here, to this point where I am writing an open letter to the world. To those who think Nigerian cuisine is no more than pepper. And I am not really on the offensive. Or defensive. I’m just in plain agreement as to how we...