My Guide to Food – Exploring and Mapping intersections between Nigerian Cuisine and Foods of the World
My children have fallen in love with Butternut squash soup. It’s our ‘winter’ of rain and cold so we’re lapping up soups with crusty bread. When I don’t want to fork out cash for expensive, imported Butternut squash, I buy Pumpkin. Prepping it is easy. I wash well and then try my best to cut […]
Your foremost primer to making the best starch ever :). Starch. Usi to my Isoko heritage. Of cassava, like corn starch. Smooth, almost satiny on the fingers. And yes, this is the self same starch for stiffening clothes. Combined with palm oil, heated till a stretchy mass is formed, this is one of my favourite things […]
This is how you first eat starch, with your grandmother’s fresh fish pepper soup, thick with Tilapia and the noon day Isoko sun. Usi, she calls it – softly, slightly hissing the s . You are in your Sunday best – every mothers dream of a princess child – frilled hems and checked belts tied […]
Cream Puffs are one of life’s greatest gifts. Everything about the way they are composed to how they are quaffed make them worthy of odes and sonnets. I think. And believe me, I’ve had some of the finest ones so I know what I’m saying. Made of Choux pastry – cooked pastry, they are the […]
Eid Mubarak, with my first-ever Crepe cake, perfect for crowd-feasting. Talk about resounding successes. Twenty (20) (in my case imperfect but delicious) layers of crepes with alternate layers of rich chocolate mousse and a salted caramel one, finished with a semi-sweet ganache and crushed candied pecans. What a mouthful. A delicious mouthful. Also known as […]
I am a collector of many things, chief amongst which are kitchen utensils. Since I discovered the Indians have something called a Coconut scraper, I’ve scoured every Indian store in Nigeria and even attempted to do same in Dubai, to no avail. Enter Kalustyan’s on my March trip to New York…and see what I procured […]
These don’t need no introduction or explanation. Take fresh groundnuts, in season – add sugar and spice (fresh ginger, cardamom, 5-spice) and boil away. I promise, you’ll want to bathe, sleep and wrap yourself in the fragrance of the liquid and the taste. We enjoyed this on a Saturday night, with tall glasses of Coca-cola […]
My advice on tomatoes may test ye, o virtuous cook for who fresh is best. Stay with me. Yes, it is the season of fresh corn and African butter pears, Ube; African walnuts, fresh dates, mosquitoes, sugar ants, guinea fowl eggs, yellow pepper and soursop. The season of rain storms and cottton wool clouds, of sunrise and sunsets, […]
Legume & grain salads are perfect for Ramadan meals. Cook up a huge pot of beans, grains and use it in a variety of soups and salads, combined with simple dressings and vegetables. Take one is this salad, take two is a soup using much the same ingredients. I particularly like this salad for the […]
Hi. My name is Ozoz. I’m a Nigerian food explorer who’s on a quest – to find and share the sweet, sweet nectar that’s food
