African Jollof Rice

African jollof rice is a popular party favourite in Nigeria and most West African countries.   It has a basic simple method and the ingredients are easy to find. It is a very flexible dish that you can experiment with by adding your own signature ingredients.

INGREDIENTS

Serves 4

– 500g Long grain rice

– 3 cooking spoons Margarine /Vegetable oil

– 2 Large Onions

– 6 or more Red chilli peppers

– 3 large Fresh tomatoes

– 3 tablespoons Tomato purée

– 1 clove Garlic/ginger

– Bay leaves

– Thyme

– 3 Maggi cubes

– 500g Chicken

– 100g Boiled seasoned snails

– 40g Cooked green peas

– 2 Smoked stock fish (optional)

– 4 pieces of Crabs or 50g Shrimps

– A bunch of Plantain bananas

– 500ml water

METHOD

STEP 1        Melt the butter or pour 1 cooking spoon of vegetable oil in a deep cooking pan, add sliced onion till slightly brown, add grated garlic, tomato purée, sliced red chilli pepper   and small grated ginger, stir all together, add other seasoning – leave to fry for 3mins then add water.

STEP 2        Add the rice and bay leaf (optional) to above.

STEP 3        In another cooking pan boil   the shrimps, crab, and snails together, add a bit of seasoning till cooked then add or separately boil green peas inside for 2mins.

STEP 4        Season the chicken and grill with onions, a bit of garlic and ginger.

STEP 5        Check the rice, if almost done, or bring to boil, add the shrimps, green peas either to garnish or to add to rice depending on you.

STEP 6         Melt small cooking spoon of oil into frying pan, slice a bit of onion, chopped red chilli pepper, a little tomato purée, add the snail, crab, smoke stock fish and grilled chicken.  Stir, add seasoning and fry for 10 minutes to make sauce.

STEP 7        Check rice if well cooked.  Softly stir up from the root with a wooden spoon because of the sauce settled at the bottom. If done, garnish with cooked and boiled green peas, fried plantain and the sauce. Serve with your favourite beverage.

TIP:  Grate instead of chopping the garlic and ginger into the dish in Step 1 for a sweeter unique flavour to the dish.