From my cookshelf, and Miss Williams’ Cookery book comes this gem of kola nut tea. There were many trials of a hot tea. First, I erroneously used a hot and peppery spice blend – blame it on the fact that the text was in French (don’t you dare blame me :)! And then, there was...
Exploring kola nuts in homemade drinks, from syrup to tea, and more
The kolanut, kola nut (genus cola, family Malvaceae) is important in Nigeria – honored, revered, an icon in our culture, present in celebrations, for prayers, thanksgiving, and more. The kola nut’s benefits are many – snack, stimulant, and also every day – think of your favorite cola drink, pretty much a soda’rized version of kola...
I’m not a huge alcohol drinker – I prefer to eat my booze than drink it 🙂 but I love tinkering and making liqueurs, infusions, wines, from scratch and more. Recently, while exploring the kola nut, I decided to make a kola nut liqueur. Liqueur because I had candied kola nut shreds which reminded me...
There are some connections I never make. I start in a certain place and move on and up from there, so the discovery of a fundamental aspect of the thing that leads to a discovery is amazing. Like Bitter Kola – seen on street corners, in trays, papery brown skin wrapping creamy, bitter white crunch...
The first time I heard of a fruit with a name prefaced by ‘Monkey’ was in 2011, when I encountered ‘Epapa‘, which turned out to be one local name for Cola lepidota, aka Monkey Kola. It didn’t seem peculiar to me – I put it down to ‘things monkeys also ate in the forest’. Till...
As I ate Yedem’blong, I kept thinking of how perfectly it would go with yam mash… And so I got making some. I simply boiled yam and pureed it with a touch of water. I’ve made yam mash/ puree before so this was no newbie or biggie. In the past, I’ve added a touch of...
Have you ever eaten kola nut with a pepper sauce? No? Me neither…till now. And I have to thank Carol of Bread & Baskets for this introduction. A few weeks ago, I toasted some Nigerian calabash nutmeg, Ehuru and shared a photo on instagram. Wofai sent me a message saying that where she was from – Ugep...
When I first discovered Epapa – Monkey Kola/ Cola, I was intrigued by its crisp crunch – part water chestnut, part carrot and its vegetal flavour, a cross between fresh green peas and young carrots. And then one night, with a wealth of it, I decided to make a relish of it. I blitzed pieces of Epapa...