Egbo and Ewa Ingredients Handy Measure Brown Cowpea 2 cups Hulled dried corn 3 cups Ground pepper (fresh) 3 cooking spoon Ground onion 2 medium size Palm oil 3 cooking spoon Salt and seasoning To taste Water Enough o cook till tender • Cook the cowpea (ewa) as earlier explained but without adding pepper and palm oil. • Pick impurities out from the dried corn • Place in a large pot and add water to at least thrice the volume of the corn • Add salt • Cook until corn is very soft and becomes paste-like • To make sauce, fry pepper and onions in palm oil for 5minutes, add salt and other seasonings to taste Add boiled corn (now called egbo) to the cowpea in desired proportion and add the sauce to taste

Egbo and Ewa Ingredients Handy Measure Brown Cowpea 2 cups Hulled dried corn 3 cups Ground pepper (fresh) 3 cooking spoon Ground onion 2 medium size Palm oil 3 cooking spoon Salt and seasoning To taste Water Enough cook till tender • Cook the cowpea (ewa) as earlier explained but without adding pepper and palm oil. • Pick impurities out from the dried corn • Place in a large pot and add water to at least thrice the volume of the corn • Add salt • Cook until corn is very soft and becomes paste-like • To make sauce, fry pepper and onions in palm oil for 5minutes, add salt and other seasonings to taste Add boiled corn (now called egbo) to the cowpea in desired proportion and add the sauce to taste

Egbo and Ewa

Ingredients	Handy Measure
Brown Cowpea	2 cups
Hulled dried corn	3 cups
Ground pepper (fresh)	3 cooking spoon
Ground onion	2 medium size
Palm oil	3 cooking spoon
Salt and seasoning	To taste
Water	Enough o cook till tender

• Cook the cowpea (ewa) as earlier explained but without adding pepper and palm oil 
• Pick impurities out from the dried corn 
• Place in a large pot and add water to at least thrice the volume of the corn
• Add salt
• Cook until corn is very  soft and becomes paste-like
• To make sauce, fry pepper and onions in palm oil for 5minutes, add salt and other seasonings to taste

Add boiled corn (now called egbo) to the cowpea in desired proportion and add the sauce to taste

Fried cowpea paste (Yoruba – Akara)

Fried cowpea paste (Yoruba – Akara)

Ingredient	Handy measure
Cowpea	2 cups
Vegetable/palm oil	Enough for deep frying
Onion	1 big size
Fresh red pepper	4 small size/ to taste
Salt	to taste

• Hulled the cowpea
• Mix with the chopped onion and fresh pepper and make to thick paste (check previous posts)
• Whip till mixture very well to incorporate air
• Add little water if necessary but it must not be watery
• Chopped pepper and onions can also be added
• Heat oil until it just begins to smoke
• Drop the batter with spoon (desired size) into the hot oil
• Flip them over when brown at a side
• Leave till it browns at the other side too
• Pree to remove excess oil
• Then remove form the oil

It is best served hot with ogi (hot pap), eko (cold pap), bread, or can be eaten alone as snack

Steamed cowpea with melon (Yoruba – Jόgí)

Ingredient	Handy measure
Cowpea	2 cups
Melon seed (egusi) Note: may be roasted or unroasted	1 cup
Chunky ingredients ( e. g. fish, corn beef, boiled egg, fresh crayfish, chopped liver, chooped ham e.t.c.)	As desired
Onion	1 big size
Dry red pepper optional	1 table spoon/to taste
Fresh red pepper	4 small size/ to taste
Salt	to taste

• Hulled the cowpea
• Mix with the melon, onion and fresh pepper and make to paste (check previous posts)
• Add the chunky ingredient(s), salt and dry pepper if used
• Whip adding hot water gradually to it
• Whip till mixture coats the back of a spoon thickly
• Wrap in leaves, cooking cellophanes or put in small baking tins about ¾ full
• Cook in steamer for about 55mins.

It can be served with ogi, eko, rice, soaked gaari, bread and salad for light lunch

Longest time

It's been quite some time buddy. I had to go on compulsory holiday, but now am back. Thanks for being there.
Grace

Moyin-Moyin

Ingredient	Handy measure
Cowpea	2 cups
Onion	1 big size
Fresh red pepper	5 medium size/ to taste
Tatase	2 medium size
Palm/vegetable oil	4 dessert spoon
Chunky ingredients ( e. g. fish, corn beef, boiled egg, fresh crayfish, chopped liver, chopped ham e.t.c.)	As desired
Salt	to taste

• Hulled the cowpea
• Add onion, red pepper and tatase
• Make the mixture into paste
• Warm the oil and stir in
• Add hot water slowly till mixture coats the back of the spoon
• Fold in one or more of the chunky ingredients
• Wrap in leaves, cooking cellophanes or put in small baking tins about ¾ full
• Cook in steamer for about 55mins.

N.B. All chunky ingredient must be cooked and flaked or chopped into small chunks before added

It can be served with ogi, eko, rice, soaked gaari and salad

Cowpea Stew - Gbegiri

Ingredients	Handy Measure
Cowpea	2 cups
Dry ground pepper (red)	1 tsp
Ground onion	1 small
Dry crayfish	1 tsp
Salt	To taste
Water	⅔ of a liter

• Hulled the cowpea as earlier explained.
• Add potash and bring to boil in water.
• Turn the heat down and cook till very soft.
• Sieve or mash the beans with spoon or cooking broom (ijabe).
• Add pepper, onion, dry crayfish and salt and cook for 20 minutes.
• Stir frequently to prevent scorching.

It is best eaten with amala, tuwo and eko

Cooked beans (Èwà)

• Pick impurities out from the beans
• Place in a large pot and add;
• water to double the volume of the beans
• tomatoes and/or pepper paste to taste
• sliced onions for flavour
• any of the mentioned species (dry) can also be added
• You can also add meat or fish.
• Cook until the beans are soft enough to eat.
• Then season with salt to get the exact taste that you want.

Eat by itself, with rice, corn, bread, yam or gààrí

Hulled cowpea

• Soak in water for about 10 minutes
• Drain the water, and rub handfuls of it firmly between the palms several times (It must be done in quick successions)
• Fill the bowl with water and mix the cowpea with it
• Pour off the floating hulls and then repeat steps 1-4 until almost all the hulls are removed
• Remove the remaining hulls individually.
• The dehulled beans can be dried before grinding if it is to be kept in this form
• It can also be grinded in this form to make the paste

Cowpea

We will be talking about cowpea (beans) for some times now. The beans type am referring to here is Vigna unguiculate though many other legumes are used in cooking though out Nigeria. There are various varieties of this cowpea commonly referred to as beans in Nigerian market. All varieties are similar in nutritive value but local preferences exist. The common ones are either whitish or brownish in colour. Cowpeas are high in soluble carbohydrate and protein. They also contain some minerals but are low in oil. In Nigeria, cowpea is a valuable source of protein because of short supply of animal protein.

For storage sake, it is better to buy the ones that are well dried and free from insects , insect holes and are not discoloured. They should be picked to remove foreign materials and debris. A proven way of keeping cowpeas in bulk is by keeping them in an air tight container with some fingers of dry pepper preferably ‘ata wewe’ in a cool dry place.

Cowpea can be cooked as a whole or as processed paste.

Banga soup with beef

Ingredient	Handy measure
Beef	12 pieces
Palm fruit pulp	2 cups
Dry pepper	1 tea spoon
Fresh pepper	4 ata rodo
Onion	1 small size
Tomato paste	1 dessert spoon
Okro	8 small sizes
Atariko	1/2 tsp
Rigije	1/2 tsp
Salt	to taste

Put palm fruit pulp with the meat in pot and make the pulp up to 5mt with water. Boil till the meat is tender. Add the g rinded onion, fresh pepper and finely chopped okro with the remaining ingredients and cook uncovered for about 15minutes.
It can be served with cooked cassava starch, tuwo or pounded yam


N.B: Cooking is best done in local clay pot

Fresh fish soup

Ingredients Handy Measure
Fresh fish (any type but preferable catfish) 1 medium
Fresh shrimps or prawns 1 hand full
African nutmeg 5 seeds
Enge 1 pod
Emilo 1 seed
Lemon grass 1 blade
Dry ground pepper 1 table spoon
Salt to taste
Onion 1 medium
Fresh red pepper for hotness

Remove seeds of enge from pod and add to other spices and grind
Grind the onion and fresh pepper.
Clean the fish and cut to about 3 pieces and rub with salt
Boil all the ingredients in about half a litre of water for 10 mins.
Add fish and shrimps to the boiling ingredients and put off the cover until the quantity is reduced by half

It can be served with boiled rice, yam or plantain. It can also be served as appetizer.

Some commonly used root and species

African Black Pepper: Piper nigrum. Small black seeds dried for marketing. Grind before adding to any soup or stew to taste. It is much like the ground black or white pepper of Europe and America.

Atariko: Small seeds sold in, or removed from, an alligator pepper-like pod. Highly scented, but not as hot as alligator pepper. It is expensive so use only a few of the tiny seeds to flavour pepper soups, or banga soup with rigije. Sold in the markets by traders from the Niger-Delta areas.

Yanghanyanghan Tetrapleura tetraptera: These are long wing-been shaped pods sold dried in the market by Delta women for spice and in other locations for spice, cosmetics or dyes. Remove the inner soft portion from the ‘wings’ when dry and use ground in pepper soups.

 

Gbafilo: Large, egg-shaped seed with rough sandpaper-like surface. The nut, which shakes freely inside, is removed and ground for inclusion in pepper soups. Sold in the markets by traders from the Niger-Delta areas.

African nutmeg: Monodora myristical. These seeds, which are obtained from inside a large round fruit, are dried for marketing. When purchased, the seed should be opened and the inner serrated nut removed. This may be roasted over an open flame for a few seconds or used directly. Grind in a mortar or with a stone. A large quantity may be ground in a blender. The ground spice should then be stored at room temperature if well dried or in the refrigerator. In the Delta and surrounding areas, the African nutmeg may be bought at food stalls; in some other areas it is more easily found in the medicine or cosmetic sections of the markets. It is especially good in pepper soups, pottages, and with shrimp.

Enge: Xylopia aethiopica. Clusters of long black seed pods, more or less constricted between internal seeds. The long pods are broken in several places or crushed so that the seeds are broken. Use in pepper soups and other dishes. Remove the pod before serving.

Turmeric: Curcuma longa (Common name: red ginger). Root used dry for spice, in introduced curries.

Ginger: Zingiber officincale (Common name: white ginger). The root is used fresh or dried and ground for spice on meats, in moyin-moyin and in chicken dishes. Also used medicinally for catarrh, toothaches, neuralgia.

Rigije: Small brown flat seeds used with atariko in banga palm fruit pulp soups. Sold by Niger-Delta market women.

Ukpotoro Mucuna flagilipes: Black flattened seed with two grey stripes. The seed is shelled, boiled for thirty minutes and pounded with a small amount of oil before begin added to okazi vegetable soup where it provides a mucilaginous binding quality. Shelled, boiled and fermented, it can be slivered and substituted for oil bean.

Red peppers: Many varieties of red peppers, both fresh and dried, are available all year round in the market. Dry pepper is sold whole or ground and is used mainly to give hotness. Fresh pepper gives flavour, colour, thickening and hotness to foods. The seeds and membranes, which are irritating to the skin and some digestive systems, may be romoved before being used raw or cooked. Names for the most common types given below were selected because they are widely understood in urban markets.

• Ata wewe-Small, very hot pepper which is usually dried.
• Sombo-Long, small pepper which is usually dried. Not as hot as ata wewe.
• Ata rodo or Atanla-Medium-sized red pepper which usually used fresh. Provision flavour, hotness and thickens the stew.
• Tatase-Large ‘sweet’ red pepper which provides flavour and thickening. Not very hot, particularly if the seeds and membranes and removed.
• To be continued..

 

KEY

RED- Local names

ITALICS- Scientific names

BOLD- Common names

 

Kitchen Knowledge

Traditionally, kitchens are separated from the main living quarters, while in the urban settings there are varieties of kitchens.

Kitchen equipments in the traditional settings include;

• Hanging basket over the cooking area-for preserving and drying foods
• Knives, matchets and spoon(metal and wooden)-for stirring and scooping of food
• Basins(calabash, enamel, clay, wooden)-for storage and carriage
• Strainers(metal and wooden)
• Bottles and tins(of different shapes and sizes)-also for storing
• Mortar and pestle
• Grinding stone
• Local stoves for burning firewood or charcoal

Kitchen equipments in the modern settings include;

• Stoves - can be electric, kerosine, gas
• Basins -enamel, plastic, stainless, calabash
• Posts -various sizes ans shapes for different needs
• Spoons - several spoons of different sizes and shapes for different needs from serving tostirring and eating
• Knives
• Steamer
• Graters
• Trays
• Baskets
• Cleaning cloths and napkins
• Measuring containers- like tines, modu, scales e.t.c.
• Bottles, tins and jars
• Refrigerator
• Food grinder/blender
• Oven
• Toaster
• Microwave e. t. c.

N.B. Most of the traditional equipments can be modified for modern kitchen

Common Ingredients for Traditional African Food

Vegetables; Okra, Watermelon, Groundnuts, Black-eyed Peas, Cabbage, Carrots, Maize - corn, Groundnuts, Sweet Potatoes, irish Potatoes

Meats; Chicken, Pork, Beef, Fish of various varieties
Spices; Garlic, Aligator pepper, clovesblack pepper, corns, cardamom, nutmeg, turmeric, curry

Other; Rice, Yams, Cassava, Cocoyam e.t.c