"Recipe of the Day, Week No: 51: Nigerian Jollof Rice”

You may be salivating seeing this food in front of you. Most Nigerians aren't surprised because this is what's popularly known as wedding or burial rice. The Nigerian Jollof. So I decided to cook this Jollof at night as I was so occupied during the night. Night cooking hasn't really gone well with me as lighting matters a lot and power supply is barely seen in my locality except at night.

So I started by ensuring my ingredients are intact as I dislike purchasing foodstuffs at home as the prices are always too exorbitant to contend with except you make your purchases in the open market. I got my ingredients ready and they include the following;

• Sand Free Rice
• Whole Chicken
• Power Oil
• Tomato pasta
• Spices
• Egg
• Herbs like ginger, onions
• Cameroon Pepper, Maggi and salt
• Stew

These are a few ingredients I purchased for the preparation of this rice. This rice is purely made out of tomatoes or stew and not palm oil as there's a big difference between Nigerian Jollof and Palm oil or MTN rice. The following are the cost of the food items I purchased.

Like I said, things in Nigeria is very costly now compared to before. So we economise to the best of our ability when we want to eat good food so we don't overspend our budget.

So I spent just 27 steems in cooking. How cheap in steem value and expensive in naira value. 20 naira in can't even buy you pure water but 20 steems can cook a pot of food. Impressive. You may also be wondering how I cooked this food as many people have their own ways of preparing Jollof Rice. I think I know of three ways.

• Some people wash the rice before cooking and don't parboil. They contain all the ingredients in the pot and allow to dry

• Some people parboil their rice and then fry their ingredients before mixing their rice to taste.

• Some people don't fry their ingredients but cook it in a pot while the rice is on the siever. Once they taste the mixture that their ingredients is good, they add the rice and ensured it mixes well before adding water and allow to dry. Which method did I use?

Preparing Nigerian Jollof at night was a difficult task for me especially with the introduction of video classes. I spent 3 hours cooking this rice. Funny right.? Just reminded me of when I wanted to cook indomie. I spent 5 hours cooking indomie and garnishing it for the camera. These are my methods of preparation.

• I sampled my ingredients in an appealing way and then made sure everything is intact before cooking. I used my two-sided gas cooker to cook the chicken and then cook the rice as the chicken was raw. Starting with the whole chicken, I had to cut it into pieces to be able to cook.

• With the help of a chopper, I was able to cut the chicken into big pieces for consumption. To cook it, I contained it inside a pot and added my ingredients. I added fresh peppers, 3 cubes of Maggi, onions and a teaspoon full of salt to taste. I then mixed it before adding a considerable amount of water to level the chicken and then take it on fire. Before dissecting my chicken, I washed my rice and put in a pot with water above the horizon and the placed it on fire.

• I was multitasking but that of the chicken was a done deal. I had to wait for about 15 minutes before parboiling my rice for the main preparation. I sieved the water out with a Siever and then washed it with running water. With that same pot used in cooking the rice to soften, I placed it on heat and allowed it dry before pouring my power oil. While the rice was on fire at first, I emptied my tomato paste on a bowl and added water to reduce the thickness and then later mixed my ground crayfish and pepper in another bowl, added Maggi and curry powder.

• When the oil was heated, I emptied the onions and ground crayfish inside the pot before pouring the tomato paste and adding some other spices like my curry powder, thyme and the likes. I stirred it well and added 3 cubes of Maggi and a pinch of salt since I'll put it inside my rice already. I then added my stew inside and stirred it to taste. Using the turning stick, I checked if any ingredients was lacking before adding my rice which I mixed with salt to taste.