Daily Bread recipe: Nurudeen’s jollof rice

To close off Black History Month, we wanted to share a recipe for jollof rice from Nurudeen Apena, one of our warehouse associates at Daily Bread Food Bank. This family recipe, which Nurudeen cooked for Daily Bread volunteers last week and grew up eating, is a special piece of his Nigerian heritage. Jollof rice is a popular dish that’s often prepared for parties, and celebrations. “Any Nigerian occasion without jollof rice isn’t considered a good one,” joked Nurudeen.

Though it can take a while to prepare, the effort is well worth it! It’s smoky flavour with a hint of sweetness is full of depth – it’s no wonder why it’s such a popular dish.

Thank you, Nurudeen, for sharing a bit of home with us!

Jollof rice:

Ingredients:

• 4 cups parboiled white rice
• 3-4 red bell peppers
• 1/2 can of plum tomatoes
• Optional: 1/2 of a scotch bonnet pepper
• 2 cups of stock of your choosing (vegetarian, beef or chicken)
• 120 g tomato paste
• 2 diced onions
• 6 tbsp cooking oil
• 2 tbsp butter
• 1 tbsp minced ginger
• 1/2 tsp curry powder
• 1/2 tsp thyme
• 1/2 tsp jollof seasoning powder
• 3 bouillon cubes (preferably chicken)
• 2 tsp white pepper
• 3 bay leaves
• 1 medium size tomato cut into slices for garnishing

Instructions:

1. Blend peppers, tomatoes, scotch bonnet, and one onion into a smooth paste and set aside.
2. Add cooking oil to a large pot, cook on stove top at medium heat. To this, add half of a diced onion, let it fry until golden and fragrant.
3. Add the blended sauce to the pot, mixing in tomato paste, bouillon cubes, curry powder, 1 tsp white pepper, bay leaves and cover. Let cook for about 15 to 20 minutes or until oil begins to float to the top.
4. While that is cooking, rinse rice thoroughly to remove starch.
5. Once clean, parboil rice in another pot for 5-8 minutes with little water on low heat. The rice should still be firm and not soft.
6. Wash rice once again with warm water and set aside.
7. When sauce mixture is ready, add two cups of stock, cover and let simmer for another 8-10 minutes.
8. Once ready, slowly begin combining the sauce and rice mixture in a larger pan, slowly adding the sauce as you go.
9. Once fully combined, sauce should be about 1 cm over the rice.
10. Add butter, minced ginger and remaining tsp of white pepper. Cover and let finish cooking for about 20 minutes until rice softens; stirring periodically and adding splashes of stock or water as you go.
11. When rice is almost cooked, add remaining onion and tomato for garnish to heat through for another few minutes.
12. Once rice is cooked, turn off heat and leave to steam with the residual heat for a minute or two.
13. Serve and enjoy!