More Nigerian food

While I pretty much sailed through Togo and Benin, barely fitting in a recipe before I was across the border again, Nigeria is larger. Nigeria gives me a lot of opportunities to cook something new.

In this case, a chicken stew

Look, as I’ve “traveled” virtually for this loop, I’ve invested in a lot of ingredients I might not have otherwise. I own red palm oil and cornmeal because corn is big in Togo. I own turmeric and Ras el Hanout (and tried preserved lemons) because these feature in Moroccan cooking.

I draw the line at buying curry. If you love curry in all its infinite varieties … great, more for you! I won’t eat your share of it.

So adjustments were made. I own a lot of the seasonings that go into a curry blend; I’m just not buying the curry itself.

I’m also noticing how many of the Nigerian recipes say to take a host of veggies and blend them. Like in a blender or food processor. I’m fine with that – I own both (hey thanks again, fam!) – but it does make me wonder how recipes like these worked pre-blenders. That seems like it would be a ton of effort to do manually.

I made one other change, of necessity. I only had one habanero pepper, and had both this dish and Yassa to make. So I only used half of the habanero (with all of its seeds) in this dish.

It’s spicy!

And it’s goooooood!