Ofada Stew

Ingredients:

Assorted Meat (goat meat, pomo, tripe etc cut into small pieces)

4 Green Bell Peppers

2 Red Peppers (or tatase)

8 Habanero Peppers (Or more if you like it hot)

1 Onion Bulb

1 Locust Bean (Dawadawa/Iru/Okpei/Ogili)

1 Handful of crayfish

1 Knorr

2 Cups of palm oil

Directions:

Season the assorted meat and cook as if you’re cooking soup (don’t put curry or any fancy seasoning. Just knorr, salt and onions would do). Strain the meat from the stock and set aside.

Remove the green and red pepper seeds and wash. Break into small pieces and put in a blender. Add the habaneros and onion to the blender too. Blend well.

Add the blended peppers to a pot and cook till all its water has dried.

You will notice the quantity of pepper in the pot has shrunk (look at the sides of the pot).

Add the palm oil to a pot and blanch. It will definitely get very smoky in the kitchen so open all the windows and get a fan running…or better still, do it outside in open air.  Mine took me about 10 minutes to bleach.

If you've blanched the oil well, you should be able to see the bottom of the pot through the oil.

Use a dry mill to grind the locust bean and crayfish.

Add the bleached oil to the dried pepper and fry till it’s very dry (you’ll know it’s dry when oil starts to settle on top). Add the ground crayfish and locust beans and fry some more. Season with knorr.

Add the cooked meat and allow simmer for like 5-10 minutes.

Serve over ofada rice or any other rice. I had a hard time finding the ofada rice so I just used the rice I had at home. Also, this dish is served on a leaf….that, I didn’t have either but I served it on my leaf plate so I guess that counts. *wink* ;)