Nigerian cuisine
Jollof rice
Rice cooked in a thick sauce of tomato, pepper and onion. The sauce is reduced dark before the rice goes in.
- Prep
- 20 min
- Cook
- 60 min
- Total
- 80 min
- Difficulty
- Medium
Ingredients
- Long-grain rice — rinsed500 g
- Tomatoes600 g
- Red peppers2
- Onions2
- Scotch bonnet1
- Tomato paste3 tbsp
- Curry powder2 tsp
- Dried thyme1 tsp
- Bay leaves2
- Chicken stock600 ml
- Neutral oil100 ml
- Saltto taste
Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.
Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.
Method
- 1
Blend the tomatoes, peppers, one onion and the scotch bonnet until smooth.
6 min
- 2
Fry the second onion in the oil until soft, add the tomato paste and cook five minutes, until it darkens.
10 min
- 3
Pour in the purée and reduce it for twenty-five minutes over medium heat, stirring. It darkens, thickens and the oil begins separating at the edges.
25 min
- 4
Add the curry powder, thyme, bay and stock, season and bring it to the boil.
5 min
- 5
Stir in the rinsed rice once, cover with foil and a lid, and cook on the lowest heat for twenty-five minutes. Do not lift the lid or stir.
27 min
- 6
Take it off and let it stand ten minutes. Fork it through from the bottom up, lifting the lower layer.
12 min
About the dish
The base of jollof is the obe: tomato, red pepper, onion and scotch bonnet blended to a purée and reduced in oil until it darkens and the oil separates. That takes half an hour and cannot be skipped.
The rice cooks in that sauce rather than separately. It drinks everything up and takes on the orange-red colour; stirred in after boiling, it stays white with sauce on top.
A light catch on the bottom is a mark rather than a fault. In Nigeria it is called party jollof and prized: the smoky note comes from exactly there.
Worth knowing
- — The foil under the lid is not decorative: it traps the steam so the rice cooks evenly without more water.
- — Liquid to rice runs about one to one by volume — less than for plain rice, because the sauce is already wet.
- — Whoever argues about jollof, Nigeria or Ghana, is touching a sore subject. The recipes really do differ: the Ghanaian version more often uses basmati, the Nigerian long grain.
Nutrition
Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.
- Calories
- 520 kcal
- Protein
- 10 g
- Fat
- 18 g
- Carbs
- 80 g
More from Nigeria
- Suya — Beef skewers in a ground peanut and spice rub, applied twice — before and after grilling.