Nigerian cuisine

Yam pottage/porridge dish

Homemade meat pie with beef and vegetables

Location of Nigeria

Beef suya wrapped in plastic

While most of it is traditional, some of the cuisine of Nigeria has been influenced by nations like Portugal, India, Persia, Great Britain, and those in North Africa. Like other West African cuisines, it uses spices, herbs in conjunction with palm oil or groundnut oil to create deeply-flavoured sauces and soups often made very hot with chili peppers. Nigerian feasts are colourful and lavish, while aromatic market and roadside snacks cooked on barbecues or fried in oil are plentiful and varied.^[1]

Entrees

Rice-based

• Coconut rice is a rice dish made with coconut milk.
• Jollof rice consists of rice, tomatoes and tomato paste (sometimes), onion, salt, sometimes oil, red pepper, other spices, and a variety of vegetables and meats, and can constitute a complete banquet on a plate.^[2] Jollof rice is generally spicy with some exceptions.
• Pate^{[disambiguation needed ]} is made with ground dry corn or rice or acha. Mostly combined with vegetables (spinach), tomatoes, onions, pepper, garden egg, locust beans, groundnut, biscuit bone and meats minces. It is common within northwestern Nigeria, like Kaduna, Nassarawa and Plateau.
• Tuwo masara is corn flour dish eaten also in the northern part of Nigeria.
• Tuwo shinkafa is a thick rice pudding usually eaten with "miyan kuka"( a musillaginous soup)and goat meat stew or miyan taushe, a pumpkin stew made with spinach, meat(usually goat or mutton)and smoked fish. It is primarily served in the northern part of the country.

Beans-based

• Akara
• Ewa aganyin
• Gbegiri(a bean based stew native to southwest nigeria)
• Moimoi

Meat

Meat is used in most Nigerian dishes.

• Suya is a meat kebab coated with ground groundnuts (peanuts) and chili pepper and other local spices. It is prepared barbecue style on a stick. This is one of the most famous Nigerian delicacies and can be found within easy reach all over the country.^[2]

Soups and stews

Maafe

• Banga soup is made from palm nuts and is eaten primarily in the midwestern part of Nigeria.
• Miyan kuka is also common among the Hausa people.
• Miyan yakuwa is a famous soup common to the Hausa people.
• Pepper soup is a light soup made from a mix of meat or fish and a mix of herbs and spices. This is one of the few soups in Nigerian cuisine that can be drunk alone and not as a sauce for a carbohydrate main dish such as fufu or pounded yam.^[2]
• Afang is a vegetable soup which has its origin from the Efiks in the southeast of Nigeria.
• Corn soup, also known locally as omi ukpoka, is made with ground dry corn and blended with smoked fish. It is common with afemai people mainly from Agenebode in northern Edo state.
• Draw soup (or okoroenyeribe) is made from okro or melon seeds cooked until they thicken.^[2]
• Efo soup or tabot stew is a stew made from leafy vegetables and tastes nice when eaten with fish. It is common among the Yorubas.
• Egusi soup is thickened with ground melon seeds and contains leaf vegetables, other vegetables, seasonings, and meat.^[2] It is often eaten with dishes like amala, pounded yam (iyan), fufu and more.
• Groundnut stew with groundnuts (peanuts), tomato and onion as the base, can be infinitely varied with chicken, beef or fish and different leaf vegetables for subtle flavours. Groundnut soup is made with ground dry groundnuts and vegetables, fish, meat local seasoning and palmoil. It is common amongst Etsakor people in Edo state.
• Rice Stew, similar to Maafe, is a stew made from goat, beef or chicken and cooked with a tomato, onions, peppers and groundnut- or peanut oil.
• Ogbono soup is made with ground ogbono seeds, with leaf vegetables, other vegetables, seasonings, and meat. Ogbono is also eaten with many dishes similar to pounded yam, amala, and more.

Side dishes

Fried plantain

• Fried plantain (or dodo) is a side dish of plantains fried in vegetable oil or palm oil. It is preferably ripe plantain.^[2]
• Funkaso, millet pancakes
• Mosa, fermented corn, which is ground into a thick paste,fried and then sprinkled with sugar. It is an acquired taste. There is also an alternative made from very soft plantain which is mashed into a paste, mixed with dried black pepper, fried and then sprinkled with sugar, for those with a sweet tooth.

Puddings, pastes and porridge

Moimoi (served in London)

• Moimoi is a steamed bean pudding made from a mixture of washed and peeled black-eyed beans, onions and fresh black pepper wrapped in a moimoi leaf (like a banana leaf).^[2]

Yam-based

• Iyan called pounded yam in English, is similar to mashed potatoes but all mashed and completely smooth with no yam chunks left.^[2]
• Amala (or aririguzofranca) is a thick paste made from yam, which had been peeled, cleaned, dried and then blended similar to iyan but normally darker(brown) in colour.

Cassava-based

• Eba, also called gari is, like amala, a very thick paste that is either rolled into balls or served like amala, and made from cassava (manioc).^[2]
• Fufu
• Lafun is basically like amala but much lighter in colour, and made from cassava. It is not to be confused with iyan and tastes and smells totally different from the yam-based "Iyan"

Breakfast

• Masa
• Yams and eggs or stew
• Ogi/Akamu
• Bread

Snacks and sweets

Acarajé

• Chin chin is a fried sweet cookie made from wheat flour and eggs and can be made in different shapes and sizes.
• Puff puff, a fried Nigerian doughnut.
• Akara, similar to the Latin dish acarajé, is a beignet from a dough based on black-eyed beans. It is sometimes served for breakfast.
• Alkaki, made from wheat and sugar paste
• Kuli-kuli, made from ground peanuts.
• Kokoro is a fried dry snack made from corn and garri (cassava). There are two different kinds.
• Meat pie is a D-shaped pie with beef, potatoes, and optional pepper fillings.
• Sausage roll, meat blanketed with flavored dough.
• Scotch egg
• Wara, soft cottage cheese made from fresh cow milk.
• Plantain chips
• Coconut candy
• Dundun^{[disambiguation needed ]}, fried yam, fried either in palm oil or vegetable oil to which water is added when the oil is hot as it fries to soften the yam as it cooks.

Beverages

A roselle drink

• Kunu is a popular drink made of either millet, sorghum or maize.
• Palm wine, which may be distilled into ogogoro.
• Zobo is a drink made of roselle juice. (the Yorubas call the white variety Isapa.)

Condiments

• Iru is fermented locust beans used as a condiment in cooking and is typically added to egusi soup and ogbono soup.

References

A restaurant in Meadows Place, Texas, United States that serves suya

1. ^ H.O. Anthonio & M. Isoun: "Nigerian Cookbook." Macmillan, Lagos, 1982.
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f g h i} Hudgens, Jim (2004) (in Rough Guide). Rough Guide to West Africa. City: Rough Guides Limited. pp. 1007. ISBN 1843531186. http://books.google.com/books?id=2icviOKxDNIC. 

External links

Recipe for Nigerian FOOD