Traditional Yoruba (Nigerian) Cooking–Part III–Prep The Meats

So, let’s get down to brass tacks, it’s time to prep the meats!

You can use any meat or combination of meats of your choice. I am using 2 Ibs of Chicken thighs and drumsticks, ad 2 Ibs of cubed Goat meat, because I loves me some goat!

Note: I f you are cooking Goat meat I suggest cooking it separate from the chicken.

Here’s why.

Goat has a distinct musky flavor and can be quite fatty. I prefer to let the fat render out during the cooking process, then I discard the broth.  I do not want the extra fat/cholesterol and musk in my stew. That’s just me.

Ingredients:

2Ibs of Chicken or 2Ibs of Goat: (The spice mixture is the same for both meats, but double if doing only one kind of meat)
The spice mixture is the same for both meats.
1/2 Medium Onion, sliced thinly.
2 Bouillon cubes (maggi cubes’ target=_blank>Maggi cubes, or any other variety)
1/2 Tbsp Thyme
1 Tbsp Jamaican Curry powder
Salt to taste

Method:

1. Prep the Meats by removing and discarding any unwanted parts such as skins and excess fats. Rinse the meats thoroughly. Place the meats a sauce pan and cover with water up to approximately 1 inch over the meats.

2. Add the sliced Onions, spices, bouillion cubes and salt to taste.

3. Cook the meats on medium high heat. Chicken: Boil for 20 mins. Goat: Boil for 40mins.

4. While the meats cook, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Remove the meats from the broth and place in a lined cookie sheet. **Reserve the chicken broth for the stew***
The boiled meats should look like this:

The cooked Goat.

The cooked Chicken

4. Time to dry the meat in the oven. This step is what takes your meats to the next level of flavor greatness. Drying further cooks the meats and condenses the flavor. Place the meats in the preheated oven and bake for approximately 30-45mins.

Dried Goat

Dried Chicken

This concludes the Meat Prep. At this point you can bag and freeze the meats for another day.
Sometimes I cook extra so I can skip the meat prep the next time I want to make some stew.

Next stop, we’ll work on the sauce portion of the stew.

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Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Ingredients/Shopping List
Part 3: Prepping the meats 
Part 4: Making the Stew/Obe Ata
Part 5: Okra Stew!
Part 6: The Pounded Yam (Iyan)
Part 7: Putting it all together/Conclusion

Traditional Yoruba (Nigerian) Morsel Food -Part I-Introduction

Yes, that’s right, I’m putting the Afro into AfroMartha! Come along with me on a journey into preparing some traditional Yoruba food!

I dare you to try it. I dare you not to love it.

In the next few days I will be showing you how to prepare from scratch: (Iyan) Pounded Yam, Obe Ata (Pepper Stew with Meats), and Okra Stew.

Traditional Yoruba food is morsel food. What is morsel food, you ask? It is food you eat with your bare hands, dipped into some type of stew, as pictured above. Some people who are familiar with morsel food universally call the morsel portion Fufu.  Fufu is actually just one variation of it. There are many other types, such as Pounded Yam, which is what we will be making in this series.

Like any other type of food, the Yoruba have a variety of food, some eaten by hands, and some eaten with utensils. In this series I am focusing in on the type eaten by hand, because it is the most esoteric and purest of Yoruba tradition. Due to its esoteric nature, I feel that it has not gained as much popularity as other foods.

As some of you may know, I am a Naija woman, born and bred. My ancestry is from the Yoruba tribe of the southwestern region of Nigeria. I spent the first thirteen years of my life immersed in my Yoruba culture. Once something is that ingrained in you, you can never shake it.

This makes it all the more ridiculous that in the almost 4 years of this site I have never not once introduced a Yoruba recipe. I have asked myself why, in all the years of presenting different recipes have I never introduced African food? To be honest, I just didn’t ever give it much thought. When I honestly sat down and thought about it, I realized that it had more to do with me, and less to do with you, the audience.

The bulk of my (subconscious) reason was due to the reservations I have about stigma usually attached to anything African as being primitive and unrefined. I realize now that in not celebrating and incorporating this aspect of my culture, I help to perpetuate the stereotypes and the stigma. It also does not give you enough credit for being open minded, and does not allow you to make up your own mind.

Since traditional Yoruba food is  ‘morsel’ food eaten with your (well washed) bare hands it may take getting used to.  It is not at all like eating sandwiches, wraps, tacos, etc. It can be messy for a novice, but you will quickly get the hang of it.

Yoruba cooking can be very much improvisational. There are no hard and fast recipes. It is a splash of this, a dash of that, and a whole lot of instinct.  American cooking is based on fairly precise recipes, so I have come up with a solid recipe that can be replicated. I have also broken down these posts into very short and easily do-able portions, so as not to overwhelm you with the complexity of all the moving parts. In the final post I will sum up how to make everything simultaneously. The more you do it, the more it will run like a well-oiled machine!

Yoruba cooking  is somewhat time and labor intensive. Preparing a pot of stew will take a good 2 hours. Making the Pounded yam portion requires some serious upper body strength. On the plus side, once the stews are done, the rest is easy. Your stew will last for several meals.

Like most foods, you either love it hate it. It could be an acquired taste for some, and instant love for others. I started preparing it for my children when they were very young, and they absolutely love it. We don’t go too many weeks without them asking me to make it for them. I have many American friends who love it. The Mister on the hand is not at all interested.  Tried it and didn’t like it. On nights when we eat it, he eats something else. It’s just not for him.

I want to say that Yoruba food and cooking is going to be totally different from anything you may have  experienced, but is that really true? Maybe I’m not the best judge of that.  I may not be giving you enough credit. We will find out together through this journey.

Please visit tomorrow for the  first installment where I will show you how to prep the meats for the Obe Ata.

Please subscribe to this blog here so you don’t miss a post!

Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: The Ingredients/Shopping List
Part 3: Prepping the meats
Part 4: Making the Stew/Obe Ata
Part 5: Okra Stew!
Part 6: The Pounded Yam (Iyan)
Part 7: Putting it all together/Conclusion

Make Oatmeal in a Coffee Maker?

So apparently you can now make Oatmeal in your coffee maker. I think the better question is ‘why would you want to?’. Surely there have to be simpler more sensible ways to do this. Well, if that’s what floats your boat, head on over to try it out.

Or you could do it the old fashioned way.

My kids LOVE oatmeal so I faithfully get up every morning and cook them rolled oats for breakfast.  The Mister, no matter how detailed my instructions, botches it every time. He even botches the little oatmeal packets! Seriously, who can mess that up? If I have to leave before breakfast, I measure everything out before I leave, (yeah, I have control issues).

Here’s my usual recipe:

1 1/2 Cups rolled oats
2 1/2 Cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C + 2Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 Cup Milk
pat of Butter for each bowl.

Combine first three ingredients in a pot. Cover the pot and cook over very low heat, until cooked (approximately 10mins) Do not stir while cooking.
When oatmeal is cooked add the brown sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, and milk and stir together. Scoop into bowls and top with pats of butter.
Makes 3 large servings or 4 smaller ones.

If cooking it from scratch is not your style, LifeHacker has this totally cool food hack. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m totally going to! Well, if The Mister will let me put Oatmeal in his precious coffeemaker, that is.

Head over there to get this fun little tute!

Image Courtesy of LifeHacker

Make Oatmeal in a Coffee Maker

Apparently you can now make Oatmeal in a Coffee Maker

My kids LOVE oatmeal so I faithfully get up every morning and cook them rolled oats for breakfast.  The Mister, no matter how detailed my instructions, botches it every time. He even botches the little oatmeal packets! Seriously, who can mess that up? If I have to leave before breakfast, I measure everything out before I leave, (yeah, I have control issues).

Here’s my usual recipe:

1 1/2 Cups rolled oats
2 1/2 Cups water
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 C + 2Tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1/2 Cup Milk
pat of Butter for each bowl.

Combine first three ingredients in a pot. Cover the pot and cook over very low heat, until cooked (approximately 10mins) Do not stir while cooking.
When oatmeal is cooked add the brown sugar, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, and milk and stir together. Scoop into bowls and top with pats of butter.
Makes 3 large servings or 4 smaller ones. 

If cooking it from scratch is not your style, LifeHacker has this totally cool food hack. I haven’t tried it yet, but I’m totally going to! Well, if The Mister will let me put Oatmeal in his precious coffeemaker, that is.

Head over there to get this fun little tute!

Image Courtesy of LifeHacker

Make Oatmeal in a Coffee Maker

Eat To Live

Here is a picture of tonights dinner above. Isn’t it just gorgeous How the red ‘pops’ off the green? That would be the graphic designer in me talking. The dish you are looking at is Basil Pesto ‘Pasta.’
Look closer. That’s not the traditional pasta you are looking at. You are looking at thinly shredded fresh zucchini coated in a basil pesto sauce and topped in fresh chopped tomatoes tossed with some seasoned rice vinegar (my favorite!). And yes, it’s all RAW. And deelish!
Anyone who knows me knows I love food. Chicken, Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw. If it tastes good, I’ll eat it. I’ll try just about anything once (as long as it’s not bugs or strange creatures, yecch!). If I don’t like it, I never have to eat it again, is my motto. I was a vegetarian for about 5 years, and it was great, I felt healthy, and good, but I just couldn’t bear the thought of phasing out a whole food group altogether. As long as good food exists, I can’t phase out a whole segment of food just as a general policy.
Now, that being said, a good portion of my family’s diet is still vegetarian. The husband is still staunchly vegetarian, which leaves me either cooking vegetarian, or cooking two meals for dinner. Since I don’t want to spend my whole day in the kitchen, I usually cook what everyone can eat, most of the time.
I went to the farmer’s market yesterday and stopped by the Raw Passion Bistro and they served this dish. As I always do whenever I sample a great dish, I did the copycat at home, and the results are above, right. I think I pretty much got it dead on…after all, there’s no cooking involved. Bon Appetit! The dish is tasted even better since I got my ingredients from the farmer’s market.
Oh, and the cooked pasta dish on the right is what the kids ate, since I know they won’t eat the food (except for the oldest, she leans vegetarian.) I used Gimme Lean Sausage style in this, but I used real mozzarella and Colby-Jack cheeses. It was all good.