Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of jollof rice, ah parties, no Nigerian party is complete without jollof rice, with its Smokey flavour and deliciously rich tomatoes taste, it’s impossible to resist, like who even wants to resist jollof rice?
There has been so much debate as which African country has the best or most delicious jollof rice, and everyone takes side with their country, as far as am concerned nothing beats Nigerian jollof, when cooked right, one can eat it for breakfast, lunch and even dinner.
There are so many Variations to the jollof rice, you have the native jollof, the concoction jollof, the designer’s jollof and so on, and the recipe am going to be showing you today is that party jollof that has this Smokey flavour with a very rich, sweet tomatoes taste.
To make this recipe, you require meat stock, but it just so happened that I had no meat stock and I couldn’t get meat to buy around memos I said why not try fish stock and use it the same way I would have used meat stock and Viola it worked! It tasted so good that if I don’t tell you its fish stock you will not know, I was so proud of myself and everyone in the house enjoyed it with evidence of clean empty plates after eating. Anyway enough said let’s get cooking.
Ingredients
Parboiled rice
Salt
Seasoning
Vegetable oil
Onion diced
Fish stock or meat stock whichever one you have
Tomatoes, pepper and onion blend
Tomatoes paste
Curry
Thyme
Bay leaves
Ginger and garlic
Ground crayfish 2tablespoon
Directions
Take a deep pot and place on medium heat, add in 1cooking spoon full of vegetable oil and allow to heat up, add in the onions and sauté till tender, once that is done, add your tomatoes pepper and onion blend along with your tomatoes paste, ginger and garlic (diced), allow this to fry till it’s dry and there is no more tangy taste of the tomatoes.
Now add in your spices(curry &thyme) Nigerian jollof isn’t complete without them, stir into the sauce and a your meat or fish stock, crayfish, taste for salt and seasoning, adjust with salt and seasoning till you get the right taste. Bow allow this to simmer down for about 6minutes until cooked, taste and now add in your bay leaves and your parboiled rice. Make sure that the sauce has just about enough water to cover the rice, reduce you heat to low and cover your pot to allow rice cook through, this should take about 12minutes.
Now take a wooden spatula and turn your rice very well to make sure that the sauce in the bottom of the pot miles well with the entire rice, add some more diced onions and taste, cos sometimes after cooking for some time you discover that it doesn’t taste like it did in the beginning of the cooking so you adjust seasoning, please take it easy on the salt so you don’t overdo it.
Cover your rice and allow it cook till all the liquid it can dries up, your Smokey jollof rice is ready.
Serve with fried meat or fish and garnish with some diced carrots and onions.
Hope you enjoy this recipe; let me know in the comments section.
3 comments
Visiting this blog is always very refreshing..well done madam keep up with the good work. God bless you!
Weldone ma good work
@tonia thank you sis