Jollof Rice with Chicken

Ingredients:
2 pounds Chicken
3 Onions
12 Tomatoes
15 Kpakpo shito (hot green peppers)
1 tablespoon blend of spices (ginger, garlic, onion, bay leaves, cloves, rosemary)
3 tablespoons tomato puree
1 desertpoon curry
4 cups rice
2 cups cooking oil
2 maggi cubes
Salt

First start by cutting up the chicken into equal parts. Then remove the skin and wash thoroughly. Drain of all the liquid.

Add the blend of spices, 1 maggi cube and a bit of salt. Toss it all until all the pieces of chicken are coated. Leave it to marinate in the fridge for about 15 minutes.

While the chicken is marinating, slice the onions, wash and drain the rice ...

.. and blend the tomatoes and pepper.

Place the chicken in a pot and steam until tender. Add a little water (about half a cup)if it starts to run too low in the pot, you don't want burnt chicken. When it is cooked, remove it from the stock, but save the stock for later.

Heat 1 and a half cups of oil in a pan and fry the chicken, turning it over until it is light to golden brown on both sides.

While the chicken is frying, put the remaining half a cup of cooking oil into a big pot (this is the pot to cook the Jollof in) and heat it up.

Toss in the onions and fry till they soften.

When they look translucent, add the curry and fry until the edges start to brown.

Add the blended tomatoes and pepper. Cover for 5 minutes to cook the tomatoes, then uncover and allow it to fry dry, stirring it occassionaly and not letting it stick. Add the chicken stock.

Add the fried chicken, lower the heat and let it simmer so the chicken pieces can soak up all  the wonderful flavour. Stirr occassionally so that it doesn't stick.

When it thickens, take the chicken out taking only the little sauce that is on the chicken. The rest of the sauce in the pot is going towards the Jollof.

As the sauce continues to cook increase the heat again, add half a cup of the oil left over from frying the chicken, then add the tomato puree. Fry this until it is almost sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Add the rice and continue to stir.

Add 4 cups of water and the remaining maggi cube. Stir it all in then taste for salt, keeping in mind that the rice will soak up the water, so don't worry if it is a little less salty than you would like. Reduce the heat to the lowest level, cover with a polythene bag and leave to cook. Check it after 15 minutes, stir it from the bottom, with kitchen prongs, so that it stays fluffy. If it seems dry, spinkle about 1/4 cup of water into it using your hand. Cover it back up and leave to cook some more.

Serve with potato salad. Enjoy!

Tilapia Soup

I have been having some trouble with my camera lately. So for now, I either don't blog/post anything, or I have to use my phone, which I did for this post. So please excuse the picture quality, I'm still working out my lighting and angles.

I don't particulary like fresh fish soup, but my husband loves it. So, I decided to make him some Tilapia soup. It turned out so good, I ate most of it myself. Who woulda thought?!

Ingredients:

2 large Tilapia (scaled and cut into 3 or 4 pieces each)
5 Garden eggs
6 Tomatoes
2 Onions
10 peppers
Salt.

Sprinkle a level teaspoonful of salt over the fish and toss it so all the pieces get some. Leave it to marinate.

Cut off the stalks on the garden eggs then slice them in half, lengthwise. Peel the onions then place them along with the tomatoes (still whole), pepper and halved garden eggs into 1 litre of water, cover and boil.

The tomatoes will cook first. When they are soft and almost breaking apart, take them and the pepper out and blend till smooth. Sieve using a colander. Take out 3 of the 5 garden eggs and pour the pureed tomatoes back into the pot. Pour watr over the 3 garden eggs to cool them, then remove the skin and seeds.

By the time you have done this, the onions should be cooked, so you can add them to the garden eggs and blend them  together. This will not be sieved so be sure to blend them thoroughly, then pour the mixture into the pot.

Add the Tilapia and cover. Add more water if it looks too thick. Check the salt in the soup and add more if necessary. Boil it gently until the fish is cooked, about 10 minutes.

Serve it just as it is, with the garden eggs left in the soup.

You could also eat it with fufu, banku, yam, potatoes or rice.

Enjoy and let me know how you liked it.