White rice has become so much of a ‘common meal’ that most people don’t even know how to be creative with it anymore.
Oh well, our new Chef on #WakeUpNigeria taught us a way to play with rice and stew and still make it very special. According to her, buka stew is a very spicy sauce that gets its ‘buka feel’ of local taste and local aroma from the smoked fish.
See the very accessible ingredients Chef Ayo used:
Assorted meat (Ponmo, shaki, roundabout, liver etc.)
Smoked panla and titus fish
Bell pepper
Carrot and green bell peppers (for garnishing)
Garlic (for the sauce)
Blended fresh pepper and tatashe, excluding tomatoes, in order to make it spicy
Tomato paste
Onions
Seasoning cubes
Salt
And of course, your rice.
So this is how to go about it:
* Heat up a bit of vegetable oil, * slice in the onions followed by the chopped garlic, the blended pepper, the already boiled meat and ponmo. * Note that she put the seasoning cubes very much later because she didn’t make use of salt and wanted the cubes to quickly activate the sauce at the end. * The smoked fish goes in last, make sure you wash them though. * At the end, she put in some sliced bell peppers to simmer briefly and play the role of garnishing, it’s optional though.
For your rice in the other pot, boil it with little salt and add the carrots and bell peppers after it has cooked.