Jollof rice

Jollof rice is a popular party favourite in Nigeria and most West African countries. It has a basic simple method and the ingredients are easy to find. It is a very flexible dish that you can experiment with by adding your own signature ingredients. INGREDIENTS Serves 4 - 500g Long grain rice - 3 cooking spoons Margarine /Vegetable oil - 2 Large Onions - 6 or more Red chilli peppers - 3 large Fresh tomatoes - 3 tablespoons Tomato purée - 1 clove Garlic/ginger - Bay leaves - Thyme - 3 Maggi cubes - 500g Chicken - 100g Boiled seasoned snails - 40g Cooked green peas - 2 Smoked stock fish (optional) - 4 pieces of Crabs or 50g Shrimps - A bunch of Plantain bananas - 500ml water METHOD STEP 1 Melt the butter or pour 1 cooking spoon of vegetable oil in a deep cooking pan, add sliced onion till slightly brown, add grated garlic, tomato purée, sliced red chilli pepper and small grated ginger, stir all together, add other seasoning – leave to fry for 3mins then add water. STEP 2 Add the rice and bay leaf (optional) to above. STEP 3 In another cooking pan boil the shrimps, crab, and snails together, add a bit of seasoning till cooked then add or separately boil green peas inside for 2mins. STEP 4 Season the chicken and grill with onions, a bit of garlic and ginger. STEP 5 Check the rice, if almost done, or bring to boil, add the shrimps, green peas either to garnish or to add to rice depending on you. STEP 6 Melt small cooking spoon of oil into frying pan, slice a bit of onion, chopped red chilli pepper, a little tomato purée, add the snail, crab, smoke stock fish and grilled chicken. Stir, add seasoning and fry for 10 minutes to make sauce. STEP 7 Check rice if well cooked. Softly stir up from the root with a wooden spoon because of the sauce settled at the bottom. If done, garnish with cooked and boiled green peas, fried plantain and the sauce. Serve with your favourite beverage. TIP: Grate instead of chopping the garlic and ginger into the dish in Step 1 for a sweeter unique flavour to the dish