Stews are quite important to my fellow Africans and our culture, but all African countries do it differently. Most people confuse stews and soups and rightly so because stews are quite similar to soups, However stews are much thicker and require longer cooking over low heat, unlike soups which are watery and require less cooking time.
My first stew is something Nigerians call Ofada stew ,purely because it is popularly accompanied with our brown rice which we call ofada rice. In England however, it is popularly called Ayamase, which is essentially a mesh of little bits of meats in spicy pepper. Ofada and Ayamase are very similar in taste and method, but they have different recipes.
I will show you how to do both versions, but let us start with AYAMASE
Okay... lets get cooking...
AYSUGGEST'S you have this stew
As a topping with white rice
With mashed up beans
With any swallow (e.g. pounded yam or cooked cassava flakes)
As a sauce for boiled yam
As a sauce for bread
INGRIDIENTS( serves 10)
FOR THE PROTEIN (you can add or take away meats from this recipe if you are not comfortable with all)
Beef cubes(cut into thumb size shaves)
Boneless chicken (cut into thumb like shapes)
Goat meat(cut into little pieces)
Tripe (cow intestine)
Ponmo( cow skin)
Cleaned Snails ( use extra alum to clean if slippery and cut into small pieces)
4 stock cubes
2 teaspoons of salt
1 large onion
FOR THE SAUCE
20 hot green chilies
5 Big green sweet peppers
4 large onions
Iru ( farmented locust beans which needs to be washed once)
A little bit of Barbequed Panla( semi dried roasted cod fish)
4 table spoons of powdered cray fish
20 pieces of dried out prawns (take off the heads)
3 stock cubes
Half a cup of Plam oil (red oil)
METHOD
FOR THE MEATS
Wash all the proteins seperatly and thoroughly. Add the beef and chicken into a pan with 1 cup of water and add 3 stock cubes with one teaspoon of salt to the beef and chicken. Cut 3/4 of the onions into the beef and chicken and bring the mix to boil (for about 25 minutes). Taste the beef as this usually takes longer to soften, and turn off the heat when the beef is soft enough to your taste. Drain the water into a bowl, as we are going to use this tasty water to finish the stew.
Combine the rest of the meats into another pan, add 1 cup of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, 1 stock cube and the left over 1/4 onion to the pan, and boil. Meats like the snail and ponmo usually boil faster than goat meats, so taste them after 20 minutes to make sure they do not over soften. Boil the goat meat until you are satisfied with how soft it is. You can get rid of the water from this combination as the smell is not too pleasing (and remember we still have our chicken and beef water).
Heat up a lot of oil in a pan or use a deep fryer, and fry all the protein to a brown consistency and set aside for the stew.
FOR THE STEW
Combine the chilies, sweet peppers and 3 large onions, stock cubes into a food processor/ blender with one cup of water and blend (do not make the blend too smooth, it gives it a better texture, but it still be tasty if you mistakenly over blend). The blend should be thick enough to go through a small hole strainer, just to get rid of any excess water.
Chop up the last onion and set aside
Heat up your palm oil in a large size pan, until it is extremely hot (usually your house will be filled with smoke unless you have an extractor). Once the oil is extremely hot, the consistency of the oil should change from red to a almost burnt black. Add your chopped onions and immediately throw in the sieved pepper and cover (be very careful as the oil is very hot, you can try spooning in the pepper slowly if you are not comfortable pouring it all in at once).
Let the stew fry for about 15 minutes on low heat, and then add 1 cup of your meat/beef water. and cover again for another 10 minutes.
Add your locust beans, the panla, dried prawns and crayfish to the pepper and stir, then leave for a further 5 minutes before you add all the other meats. Once the meats are added stir it all in and let the stew cook for a further 10 minutes, still on low heat before you turn it off. Allow the stew to cool down for about 15 minutes so that all the ingredients will settle.
Your AYAMASE is ready to be served. Serve with any of the AYSUGGEST'S or as i have done here with my Chinese beef fried rice. Thank me later.
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