My Nigerian Jollof Rice Recipe

Jollof Rice. That dish that you?ve probably seen full blown (friendly) arguments about on social media. A staple dish of much of West Africa, jollof rice has a long history, one I?m not going to get into here because?you came for a recipe, not a history lesson.

Ingredients

• 4 big bell peppers
• 2 vine tomatoes
• 1 whole white onion
• (you can increase the amounts of the three ingredients above depending on how many mouths you have to feed. The only rule being that the number of peppers should be double the number of tomatoes used, and the number of onions used should be a quarter of the number of peppers used. )
• 1 Scotch Bonnet pepper (optional)
• 1 whole red onion
• Half a cup of vegetable oil
• A tube of tomato puree (142 gram tube like the Napolina brand)
• 3 Bay leaves
• 1 tablespoon of dried Thyme
• 3 Stock cubes
• 2 tablespoons of All purpose seasoning
• 2 teaspoons of curry powder (optional)
• Salt (to taste)
• Long grain rice (1 cup per person as a standard measurement.) The number of peppers, tomatoes and onions above usually work for 6 cups of rice. If you need to cook less rice, then reduce those ingredients as required. Effectively, the stew mixture should just cover the amount of rice when it comes to cooking time.

Preparation

1. Blend together the peppers, tomatoes and white onion. Set aside that mixture for now.
2. Chop up the red onion and fry till translucent in half a cup of oil on medium heat.
3. Add 3/4 of a tube of concentrated tomato puree to the red onion + oil mixture and fry for 5 mins.
4. Time to season the pepper-tomato-onion mixture from step one. Add the bay leaves, dried thyme, stock cubes, all purpose seasoning and salt. If you didn?t use a Scotch bonnet pepper in the mixture and want more heat, you can add here some cayenne pepper and or chili powder. Mix all of this together.

5. Combine both the mixtures you now have, cover and boil on medium heat for 15 minutes.

6. Wash your rice and drain till the water is clear. This removes excess starch and helps the rice cook better.

7. Once the stew has cooked for 15 minutes (see step 5), add the washed rice, and mix together thoroughly. Cover and cook on low heat, making sure to stir the rice every 20 minutes. Cook for a total of 1 hour then leave to sit covered for an extra 10 minutes.

Your jollof rice itself should now be ready. While it is cooking, you can prepare whatever meat or poultry you like to accompany the rice. Jollof rice pairs exceptionally well with goat meat, but chicken and/or lamb works great too. Beef is also a good choice.

[Optional Extra] Nigerians will usually garnish jollof rice with fried plantain. this is easy to prepare.

1. Peel and slice yellow plantains depending on how many people you will serve.
2. Add salt
3. Deep fry the plantain pieces until golden brown on both sides.
4. Remove plantains from oil and drain on kitchen paper.
5. Done

And there you have it. You should have made a tasty plate of jollof rice, meat of your choice and fried plantain (dodo). Go forth and enjoy.