How to Prepare Nigerian Fried Beans

The Nigerian Fried Beans is so delicious that even those who do not like beans at all enjoys it! The Nearest Nigerian meal is the Ewa Agoyin.

You have tocensure that every single bean seed is well coated with palm oil. So add enough Palm Oil to the meal. Palm oil is good for you! 

Ingredients

• 350g brown or black-eyed beans
• 2 Onions
• 3 cooking spoons palm oil or more
• 1 big stock cube
• Salt & Habanero pepper (to taste)
• Water

Side Dish: Fried Plantains

Before you cook your Fried Beans

1. usually you will have to soak the beans in cool water overnight. This greatly reduces beans bloating and upset stomach associated with eating beans.
2. The next day, chop 1 onion into thin slices, cut the other one into 4 big chunks then pound/grind the pepper.
3. Rinse the beans and put in a sizeable pot. I rinse it twice.
4. Pre-cook the sliced onions with a few drops of water to soften them a bit.

Cooking Directives

1. Set the pot of beans on the stove or a gas. Add the stock cube (crushed once ) and the chunks of onion. Add enough water to cover the beans and start cooking. Cook the beans till very soft, adding water when necessary. Always keep water to the same level as the beans so that by the time the beans is done, there will not be too much water in the pot.

   Note that: If you have a pressure cooker, use it to cook the beans till soft. I normally use my pressure cooker for beans but for this recipe, I prefer a normal pot so that I can have more control, especially towards the end.

2. When the beans is done, add salt, leave to dry up all the water and transfer the beans to another container.
3. Now, set a dry clean pot on the stove, pour the palm oil and heat it up till the oil melts (if congealed). Note that you should only heat it up, not bleach the oil. You will know it is hot enough when a piece of onion dropped into the oil sizzles.
4. Add the precooked onions and stir for a bit.
5. Add the ground Habanero pepper and stir till everything is heated up very well, at most 2 minutes.
6. Add the beans and stir for about 2 minutes. Add salt if necessary.
7. Cover and leave to simmer for about 2 minutes and it's done.

Serve with the Fried Plantains, Soaked Garri or bread

BOOOOM!!! your set to go

have any questions please leave a comment below on the comment section. 

Nigerian Moi Moi (Beans Pudding)

Moi moi (beans pudding) is one of such Nigerian dessert that is enjoyed by virtually everyone. moi moi is made of beans and some other ingredients. The process of making moin moin (as some people call it) is a little bit complicating but I will try to be as detailed as possible since we are yet to produce a video for moi moi.


Here are the Ingredients required in making the plate of moi moi below, you are free to increase the quantity of ingredients or reduce them depending on the number of persons you are looking to feed. These ingredients would serve six persons depending on stomach size and other factors

Fresh fish (optional)
7 Cooked Eggs (optional)
Half cup of vegetable oil
Maggi (seasoning, 2 to 3 cubes)
Salt to taste.
1 cup of sliced onions
Tatashe or shobo (about 5 to 10, it add the reddish color)
Crayfish (1 cup)
3 cups of beans

What you find above are the images some of the ingredients for making beans pudding as well of that or ground moin moin on the left and right respectively.

There is a special kind of beans (moi moi beans) used for making beans pudding in Nigerian but you can substitute with any other type of beans if you live outside Nigeria.

You can use the cooked eggs, corned beef, fish of any kind or a blend of both to make moi moi. Here I used fish and eggs, I simply parboiled the fish, removed the center bones and split into smaller pieces

Preparation

Please add the beans into a bowl, sprinkle a handful of water and start squeezing with your hands. This is the easiest way to wash beans; you would be through in 20-30 minutes. You can add a little more water but don’t allow it to soak; continue squeezing until it starts shading off the outer coat, you’d probably be doing this for about ten minutes.

When it seems like a good amount of the beans have shaded off their outer-coat, add enough water to fill the bowl, the outer coat would rise to the top, sieve and continue squeezing. At some point there would be just very few that have not shaded off their outer coat, work on them and keep washing.

Wash the beans to remove the outer coat, keep squeezing, washing and sieving till you are left with the white beans then you can prepare for the grinding part.

There are people in Nigeria that render the service of grinding food stuff like moi moi or tomatoes in large quantity

Split the red tatashe or shobo into two halves to remove the seeds at the center, this practice is necessary because the seeds add a bitter unpleasant taste to moi moi. Wash and also pluck off the green stem at the top.

What I do at this point is to add all of them (beans, onions, crayfish and tatashe or shobo) in a small clean bucket and take to the commercial grinding mill. You can use a smart blender for this if you have one, I used my semi-smart blender and it didn’t do a perfect job but it was good enough.

Parboil the fresh /frozen fish, pick out from the water then pieces the fish with your fingers, not really squashing (leave in bits) Add this to the mixture. At this point you can also add corned beef in place of the fish or a blend of both.


While still in the bowl, add the oil just pour into the ground beans – about half cup, add 2 cubes of maggi seasoning, the fish water (fish stock) (which must not be over half cup or so) salt to taste. Taste the entire mixture.

The egg can be dropped on top after the moi-moi has been distributed in cooking plates, if you want to use eggs.

Distribute in as many plates as possible, some people use moi-moi wrappers for this purpose. After the distribution you can drop into the cooking pot.

If you are cooking with plates, you can drop the plates on top of each other but you must drop tiny logs of woods or pieces of clothes at the bottom of the pot to avoid burning (some people use the stem of the moi-moi-wrapper), you don’t really need them if you are careful.

Drop the plates in the pot and add water simultaneously making sure it doesn’t top the first plate. Then cover tightly and cook for about 40 to 60 minutes adding water at interval to avoid burning or too much water that would run into the plates.

This part is monitored closely because if you allow the pot to dry the plates would start melting especially if you are using plastic plates. Note that plastic plates can cook for hours without melting or getting burned, the exception is when the pot is completely dried.

You can bring out one of the plates after cooking for 40 minutes to check if it is done, check again after ten minutes, once it is done, allow to cool off for 30-60 minutes; then serve with pap (akamu), rice or custard

Nigerian moi moi (beans pudding) can also be served alone, I love this soooo much
do you love this meal?, have a question?, please leave a comment bellow.

How to Make Banga Stew (ofe akwu)

Banga soup (stew) has topped the list of Nigerian stew recipes over the years because of its uniqueness and blend of natural ingredients . I have learned that it is more advisable to make stew with palm oil than groundnut or vegetable oil.

Bear in mind totaly different from the Deltan version that is served with starch or eba. If that is what you are looking to make, here is the recipe – Delta Banga Soup

The Banga soup (ofe akwu) is very easy to make and very popular in the eastern part of Nigeria, almost every ingredient used in Making this stew could be gotten from the farm, that is why it is a little bit easier for folks in the rural areas while it remains difficult for people outside the country to find all the ingredients that are required.

This is another kind of Nigerian stew popularly eaten by the Igbos and some other parts of Nigeria; I would prefer this stew above Nigerian tomato stew any day. This is a delicious plate rice, served with banga stew (soup) plus a sprinkle of peas. (the peas was boiled for 3 minutes on low heat)


Here is a list of ingredients used in making Nigerian Banga soup (stew) ‘ofe akwu’, (as the Igbos like to call it). Most of these ingredients can be purchased from any Nigerian market or African shops in case you live outside Nigeria.

Ingredients: | Serving : 6×2 Persons
Banga (palm fruit) (9-10 cups)
2KG of Meat (I used goat meat while making the video below, you can use chicken, turkey or a combination of two)
1 sachet of ‘Onga soup’ spice
A cup of Sliced onions
2 cups of sliced fluted pumpkin(optional)
2 cubes of maggi
A cup of sliced Scent leave
Dried fish (500g)
Half cup of ground Crayfish
Fresh or dried pepper to taste
Salt to taste

“Onga soup” is a special kind of spice that I use in making Nigerian banga soup and few other Nigerian foods, You will find this in the video below. Onga is made by promasidora (Nigeria) LTD, I think the company is located in Switzerland.

Like I always say; there are lots of spices and flavors used in making Nigerian foods, most of which are also franchised in almost every country of the worlds. Take knorr cube for instance, this ingredient is available in almost every country of the world in different forms and shapes, knorr or maggi is used in almost every known Nigeria food recipe.

The good thing is that you can use almost any spice for Nigerian foods although there are just a few that are irreplaceable.

Below is the image of pounded palm fruit with a portion of the squeezed-out thick juice in a plate and then by the right is sliced onions, scent leaves in a plate

Soak the dried fish in hot water and wash thoroughly to remove sand and dirt,
blend the crayfish or blend together with dry pepper if you are making banga stew with dried pepper, although I prefer to use red fresh peppers.

Chop the onion and set aside in a plate, I like to make most foods with lots of onions just because of its health benefits.

Cook the palm fruits (banga fruits) for 30 to 50 minutes then pound with a mortar and pestle, you will see how this is done in the video below. Pour water in a bowl, add the pounded palm fruit and try to squeeze out the thick syrup. The palm fruit juice is a major part of banga soup this can also be used in making Nigerian soups (then you wouldn’t need palm oil).

Pour the squeezed-out thick juice into a bowl and set aside.

Wash the meat with hot water and parboil with a separate pot till it is tender (be sure to add the ingredients – use the 2 cubes of maggi, a teaspoon of salt, half cup of onions.), It is possible to make a delicious meal with tasteless meat, that is the only reason I advise you to use lots of ingredients while parboiling the meat. Then very little or none while making the main foods, just use the meat stock (water from the meat) and you will be fine.

Add the squeezed-out palm fruit juice to the boiling meat on fire.

Add the (dried fish and crayfish) to the cooking pot and cook for about 10 minutes
Add your spices if it is not yet as tasteful as required. (Sachet of “onga soup” and/or a cube of maggi, knorr or royco). Stir and add the scent leave (chopped), sliced onions, salt and pepper to taste.

Cover and cook for another minute then add the chopped vegetables (optional), allow to simmer for another 3 minutes and you just made a delicious Nigerian banga stew (ofe akwu)

Serve with rice, yam or cooked beans

That is how to make banga soup (stew) in Nigeria, the Igbos call it “ofe akwu”.

How to Prepare Delicious Nigerian Nkwobi

This meal has been around for a very long time, At first it was made with just bush meat (edible wild animals), such as squirrel, grass cutter, rabbit and even antelopes, but along the line people starting experimenting with domestic animals and even poultry birds.

If you are among the people that are asking “what is nkwobi?” here is a simple definition; It is Igbo delicacy that is made with all kinds of meats, in a little while you will read all the processes involved in making it and why it is very popular within the eastern part of Nigeria. You will also learn about all the ingredients used in making it and different kinds of meats that could also be used.

I remember vividly the first time I had a plate of Nigerian nkwobi, it was very delicious and very pepperish, also you can use pepper to your taste. The last recipe I ate was made with chicken, but like I said initially, your choice of meat can vary but the methods remain the same.

Here are the ingredients that are used in making Nigerian nkwobi (for five to ten persons.)

2 kg Meat (chicken, wild meat, goat, cow tail, assorted meat)

2 cubes of knorr

Utazi leaves – a handfull

Edible potash (one teaspoon)

Palm oil (half cup) 125ml

Ugba – 1 cup

Onions – 2 slice

Salt and pepper to taste

The first step is parboiling the meat with some ingredients; onions, a cube of maggi/knorr and salt will be enough. Then allow to cook for another fifty to sixty minutes until the meat is completely soft.

This is necessary because nkwobi as well as Nigerian pepper soup is basically made with very soft meats, just so it is not hard to chew.

Most preparation processes take place in a small mortar, (an African carved hollow wood), but you can use a pot if you are not in Nigeria. This is just how it has been, some of Nigerian food customs have been around for years and we probably haven’t found a credible reason why they should be revoked.

Slice the onions and utazi, then set aside on a plate, some people choose to add these two during the preparation process while others use them for decoration purposes. One way or another, Utazi and onions should be part of the ingredients used in preparing Nigerian Nkwobi.

You can boil the ugba in small amount of water for about 2 to 3 minutes, this technique is hygienic, it helps to eliminate every possible health threat. Note that this ingredient is processed with the help of a harmless bacteria. This is just to be on the safe side even though most Nigerians eat ugba without heating in any way.

Cook the meat until it is almost dry, check to see the water level. This is important because you don’t end up with another kind of pepper soup, Stir the cooking meat in the pot to be sure that it doesn’t burn. Did I say that it is also necessary to cut the meat to tiny bits?

Dissolve the potash in about 150ml (half cup) of water and filter about half a cup into the pot, you will learn a little bit about this from the video below. You will know exactly how this is done, although most Nigerians are familiar with this technique.

Add about half a cup of palm oil into the pot, stir to obtain a thick yellow paste (ncha) and you are just few steps away from having a very delicious nkwobi, also add two spoons of ground crayfish, Ugba, pepper and salt to taste, then stir very well before adding the meat.

Note: If the meat is too hot, it would dislove the “ncha” and turn it redish> allow the meat to cool for 10 minutes before using.

Add the sliced onions and utazi but reserve a little of both for decoration. The utazi is very necessary because it adds a faint bitter taste which is an integral part of nkwobi and some other Nigerian foods.

Stir, turn out in a round plate and decorate with sliced onion, pepper and utazi. That is just how to make a delicious plate of the popluar Nigerian Nkwobi.