
Khadijah’s Kitchen: How to prepare Jollof Rice (Step By Step)
Jollof rice is a popular party favourite in Nigeria and most West African countries. It has a basic simple method and the ingredients are easy to find. It is a very flexible dish that you can experiment with by adding your own signature ingredients.
INGREDIENTS
Serves 4
– 500g Long grain rice
– 3 cooking spoons Margarine /Vegetable oil
– 2 Large Onions
– 6 or more Red chilli peppers
– 3 large Fresh tomatoes
– 3 tablespoons Tomato purée
– 1 clove Garlic/ginger
– Bay leaves – Thyme –
3 Maggi cubes
– 500g Chicken
– 100g Boiled seasoned snails
– 40g Cooked green peas
– 2 Smoked stock fish (optional)
– 4 pieces of Crabs or 50g Shrimps
– A bunch of Plantain bananas
– 500ml water
METHOD
STEP 1:
Melt the butter or pour 1 cooking spoon of vegetable oil in a deep cooking pan, add sliced onion till slightly brown, add grated garlic, tomato purée, sliced red chilli pepper and small grated ginger, stir all together, add other seasoning – leave to fry for 3mins then add water.
STEP 2:
Add the rice and bay leaf (optional) to above.
STEP 3:
In another cooking pan boil the shrimps, crab, and snails together, add a bit of seasoning till cooked then add or separately boil green peas inside for 2mins.
STEP 4:
Season the chicken and grill with onions, a bit of garlic and ginger.
STEP 5:
Check the rice, if almost done, or bring to boil, add the shrimps, green peas either to garnish or to add to rice depending on you.
STEP 6:
Melt small cooking spoon of oil into frying pan, slice a bit of onion, chopped red chilli pepper, a little tomato purée, add the snail, crab, smoke stock fish and grilled chicken. Stir, add seasoning and fry for 10 minutes to make sauce.
STEP 7:
Check rice if well cooked. Softly stir up from the root with a wooden spoon because of the sauce settled at the bottom. If done, garnish with cooked and boiled green peas, fried plantain and the sauce. Serve with your favourite beverage.
TIP: Grate instead of chopping the garlic and ginger into the dish in Step 1 for a sweeter unique flavour to the dish.