Читать книгу Hibiscus: Discover Fresh Flavours from West Africa with the Observer Rising Star of Food 2017 - Lope Ariyo - Страница 18

OKELE

Okeles are the preferred dish of most Nigerians and in some sense can be seen as the West African answer to pasta. The English translation of okele is ‘swallow’, because it doesn’t need to be chewed – rather, you let it melt in your mouth and then gulp it down.

The beginning stages of making an okele are similar to that of preparing choux pastry, but okele requires additional steaming. The process of repeatedly steaming and beating the okele does two things. Firstly, it ensures it is cooked through and develops the flavour of the okele, so that it doesn’t taste like you’re eating a flour paste. Secondly, it develops the starch that makes okele characteristically stretchy and sticky – without the constant beating and steaming, that starch doesn’t become active.

The most common ingredients used to make okele are rice, yams, cassava or plantain, and there are two varieties: Fufu (the most popular) and Amala, which differ primarily according to how their base ingredients are prepared. Fufu usually range from pure white to off-white and their consistency varies depending on how much liquid is used – generally, for soft Fufu, there should be four times as much liquid to flour. Amala range in colour from mustard yellow to grey-brown.

On its own, an okele can be pretty bland; for that reason, Nigerians take great pride in pairing it with a combination of soups to really bring it alive. The traditional way to eat an okele is by scooping some of it by the fingers, rolling it into a ball and then coating it in the desired soup. Okele can be quite heavy so is best eaten at lunchtime, rather than for dinner.

Here are two of my go-to recipes. Eba is the easiest and fastest okele to make. It’s a common weekday meal in Nigeria and great if you’re trying to eat well on a budget or are craving something tummy-hugging and heartwarming. It’s made from dried cassava (garri) which tastes like sourdough and contains coarse granules, making eba slightly less smooth in texture than most okele. The use of dried cassava technically makes eba an amala, but it’s closer to Fufu in colour, so I like to consider it a hybrid between the two! It’s best paired with Bell Pepper Soup (Obe Ata) and Seafood Okra Soup (Obe lla) as seen here.

Amala Isu, or yam amala, is my grandma’s favourite okele and it apparently tends to be eaten by the older generations in Nigeria. She believes it’s an acquired taste and that you’ll know you’re matured when you start to enjoy it. She would probably shudder at my method, but this version of amala is beginner friendly. I suggest trying it alongside my Spinach and Lamb Stew (Efo Riro) and Egusi Soup (Obe Egusi), or as is done traditionally, with Bean Soup (Obe Gbegiri).