What can I cook in Nigeria?
Question
What can I cook in Nigeria? what can I actually cook without embarrassing myself since I am fairly new to Nigerian cooking but probably getting married to a Nigerian.
My challenge is what to cook since because I have noticed he really likes his Nigerian dishes.
Answers ( 4 )
Since you are new to Nigeria..you will start with rice and stew, at least everybody can prepare that and its a also a Nigeria dish… Another easy Nigeria food is egusi and EBA…you just get your melon, oil, onions, fish or meat, cubes, salt, pepper, vegetable and that’s all.
Here is how to make egusi soup, it is actually simple.
Fry your egusi in the hot red oil, then allow to boil and add all other things ….when u notice its abt getting ready you add vegetables leave it for 3mins then you’re remove it…your simple egusi soup is ready(for a novice)
Then you make your EBA by pouring boiled water in a plate and sprinkling garri on it till it cakes, then turn it with a turner until it is well mixed…that is your egusi and EBA…your husband will like it cos he knows you are learning and as time goes by you will probably get better.
Cooking in Nigeria is quite exciting as there are different dishes one can cook and enjoy. What one can cook in Nigeria is quite enormous because food is part of the cultural heritage of Nigerians. Foods like Amala and ewedu, tuwo shinkafa, pounded yam and ofe onuugbo, are different types of dishes one can cook in Nigeria.
Also , knowing one’s tribe is key to knowing what dish one can love because as there are different tribes, so there are different associated dishes emanating from these tribes. Other type of dishes one can cook in Nigeria includes
Rice and stew
Beans and plantain
Ofe egusi
Otoo (water yam porridge)
If you are new to Nigerian cooking, I supposed there are easy foods you can cook in Nigeria.
Foods like jollof rice, egusi soup and tomato stew are quite easy to make and I think you should start with them.
There is a plethora of foods that you can cook in Nigeria but since you are fairly new to Nigerian cooking, common sense requires that you start with simple recipes that you could follow successfully.
Sometimes back I wrote about easy Nigerian recipes that anyone could follow without embarrassing themselves, my choices were largely dependent on availability of ingredients (whether the ingredients are available in most parts of the world) and whether the recipes are actually easy to follow (with fewer ingredients).
Truth is – there are Nigeria foods that require a combination of both some local and traditional ingredients, you don’t wanna start with those, before you venture into such recipes you must have gotten familiar with Nigerian cooking.
So What can I cook in Nigeria if I am yet a novice?
1 Tomato stew.
Tomato stew is a 6-ingredient food that takes less time to prepare and could be served with either boiled yam, rice or beans. Basically, tomato stew is served with rice as you can see above.
2. Jollof Rice
Jollof rice is second on the list, it doubles as the most widely cooked Nigerian food and also as the national food of Nigeria. There are fewer ingredients for it and those ingredients can be purchased in almost any country of the world.
Also, it takes just about 6 minutes to make.
3. Spaghetti
Lots of Nigerians eat spaghetti of all kinds and this is just my favorite, this is Nigerian styled spaghetti, you also find the recipe for this in the ultimate Nigerian cookbook.
It is easy to make and would’t take all of your time, the recipe will not also confuse you.
4. Other foods you can cook in Nigeria includes – porridge yam, porridge beans and also porridge plantain, etc. The list could go on forever but I will be stopping here.
When you decide to venture into Nigerian soups, I think you should start with egusi soup, that is one of the soups you can cook in Nigeria.
There are lots of Nigerian dishes that are simple to prepare. We have dishes like white melon soup and eba (egusi), pepper soup and yam, plantain porridge, fried rice, moi moi, porridge yam etc. Since you are not from Nigeria i suggest you start with white melon soup and eba it is very easy to prepare.
The preparation goes like this: you start by putting your already soaked melon in the pot and add water to your satisfaction,then you allow it to boil before adding the ingredients.
The ingredients are not much, they are melon, meat, stock fish (optional) crayfish (optional), Maggi, salt, peppers, prawn, native spice. After adding all the ingredients you allow it to boil so that ingredients will blend together then you can remove it if it has cooked to your satisfaction.
I know as you stay in Nigeria you will get used to the cooking and you will get to know some of the popular recipes that exist in Nigeria.
Eventually, you wouldn’t be wondering about what to cook in Nigeria because you would know for sure.