Find out how to Inventory a Nigerian Pantry

In Nigeria, we do not have pantries. What one calls a pantry in Europe and North America, we name a “retailer,” and no two are the identical. Every house retailer is a melange of native, regional, and international substances. Some substances—palm oil, crayfish, fermented seasonings—communicate volumes about all of the methods Nigerians are related regardless of our many various languages and cultures.

The shop is the place we home and protect lots of the substances that give us taste and sustenance, and it is the place you may see a mixture of influences, from native and regional exchanges to the deep-seated legacies of colonialism and the transatlantic slave commerce. It’s also the place you may discover types of private expression, each giant and small, like preserves, ferments, dried herbs, and extra.

Nigerian meals are usually made up of combined plates of starches, soups/sauces, and proteins, and the shop displays that. There’ll doubtless be an abundance of starches within the type of grains, legumes, and flours; there are oils and fat like unrefined pink palm oil, groundnut oil, and shea butter; there is a beautiful array of greens utilized in meals—leafy, herby, in a spread of colours, each contemporary and dried; there is a plethora of spices, like grains of Selim, calabash nutmeg, and alligator pepper, in addition to a spread of spice blends; there are dried seafood merchandise like “crayfish” and smoked fish, oysters, and periwinkles; and there are fermented seasonings and condiments, nuts, seeds, and gums.

There’s loads to discover and revel in.

Contemporary Components

Whereas the shop is usually stocked with shelf-stable items able to be become a meal or a snack at a second’s discover, a great retailer can be incomplete with out a wide range of contemporary, seasonal greens and fruit, a lot of which must be acquainted to cooks all around the world.

Roots, Tubers, and Rhizomes

Tubers and rhizomes like yams, candy potatoes, common potatoes, cocoyam (taro), ginger, garlic, and turmeric are continuously utilized in all kinds of dishes.

Contemporary Fruits

Contemporary fruits are eaten all yr spherical, and there are a couple of fruits, like baobab, tamarind, dates, which are sometimes used of their dried varieties as properly.

Bananas, pineapple, sugar cane, pawpaw, and mangoes are a few of the mostly eaten fruits. They’re eaten out of hand and are not often cooked. Fruits like tomatoes and plantains are, then again, fairly continuously cooked and basically handled as greens.

Greens

Tomatoes, (pink) onions, and peppers—candy and sizzling—are a few of the most ubiquitous substances in our shops. Leafy greens, greens, and herbs like amaranth (callaloo), pumpkin greens, candy potato greens, water leaf, and spinach are frequent, and are used contemporary or dried.

Dried Components

The shop may even usually have a big selection of dried substances, all the pieces from dried seafood and meat to dried grains and legumes, meals and flours, nuts, fruit and greens, in addition to spices.

Dried Seafood

There are numerous sorts of dried fish utilized in Nigerian delicacies: (Scandinavian) stockfish; dried fish, referred to as “dry fish” (catfish is well-liked); dried oysters; dried periwinkles and whelks; and final however actually not the least, dried “crayfish.” Whereas we name them crayfish, they’re really pink and brown prawns fully unrelated to the North American crawfish—how that title emerged continues to be one thing of a thriller. Crayfish are available varied sizes; they’re usually sun-dried, though generally they’re smoked. The massive ones are sometimes used complete or damaged, and the smaller ones are usually floor. I by no means prepare dinner Nigerian soups with out floor crayfish—by no means ever. Crayfish is to Nigerian delicacies what fish sauce is to Thai: it brings that candy fermented funk and seafood essence that many Nigerian pots can be misplaced with out, from slow-cooked dishes like egusi soup to conventional rice dishes like native Jollof rice.

Different dried fish merchandise, like giant crayfish heads, catfish heads and bonga/shawa fish (bony freshwater shad, additionally eaten as a snack), are floor and used as a seasoning, a lot as we use crayfish.

Dried Meats

There are a variety of dried meats, together with kilishi, tinko, dried kpomo (a contemporary model exists), which have lengthy shelf lives and are eaten as snacks, and a few of them are utilized in cooking. Though dried meats are principally produced from beef, you’ll additionally discover smoked and dried recreation from animals like antelope and grass cutters.

Kilishi is a beef jerky snack from the north, however it’s well-liked throughout the nation. Skinny sheets of lean beef, sliced by hand, are dunked in a moist spice paste made with nuts and sun- or oven-dried, after which they’re completed by passing over an open hearth. They’re offered in small and enormous sheets, individually wrapped in paper or clear baggage and so they can maintain for six months or longer.

Tinko (chunks of beef) and dried kpomo (cow pores and skin) are cooked, dried, and smoked. They’re rehydrated in water or inventory and utilized in soups and stews, like egusi.

Grains, Cereals, and Legumes

Grains, cereals, and legumes are the bedrock of the Nigerian retailer. Principally dried, you’ll discover them complete, cracked, floor, or milled into powder and flour. Rice, beans, corn, cassava, millet, guinea corn (sorghum) are steamed, made into doughs, fritters, and stirred into soups and sauces.

Nigerians love rice, from the homegrown Oryza glaberrima species usually named after their rising areas—Abakaliki, Ekpoma, and Ofada rice (which is fermented in the course of the processing)—to imported Oryza sativa species, notably long-grain (transformed) rice, in addition to basmati and Thai jasmine. Rice and stew (a rice dish made with a selected tomato-based sauce), jollof rice, coconut rice, and Nigerian fried rice are pillars in Nigerian delicacies.

There are such a lot of styles of beans in Nigeria, with black-eyed beans and different cowpeas being the commonest. You’ll discover them merely cooked, stewed in pink sauces, puréed into soups, and become pottage with corn, yams, plantains, and/or candy potatoes.

There are numerous flours and meals produced from cassava and garri is among the hottest. This gluten-free flour is available in a spread of colours, from cream to sunny yellow, and a wide range of textures, identical to cornmeal. I like its flexibility—dry and crunchy, you’ll be able to sprinkle it over stewed beans or fill the hole of a ripe avocado. The flavour? Candy and bitter—from gentle to sturdy. “Soaked” with chilly water, it makes a cereal-like snack which we get pleasure from in a wide range of methods and with add-ins, like coconut (contemporary or flaked), roasted peanuts, peanut crackers, and extra. Some prefer it with salt, others with sugar, and nonetheless extra with each. Sizzling, it gelatinizes to type a delicate, sticky dough referred to as eba, which is a traditional complement to thick “soups” (stews). I like it as a alternative for breadcrumbs because it delivers unparalleled crunch.

Varied varieties of millet, fonio, guinea corn, and corn are well-liked. The dried grains and kernels are steamed, boiled, popped, and cooked in soups and pottages. They’re additionally processed into fermented starches which might be offered as agency blocks or as powder, that are used to make breakfast gruels and porridges which might be referred to as pap, ogi, koko, or akamu (they’re just like Mexican atole). Served with milk and sugar, they’re frequent accompaniments to akara, a type of bean fritter, and moinmoin, a steamed “pudding” produced from beans.

Flowers

Zobo (hibiscus sabdariffa), which is also called agua de Jamaica and pink sorrel, amongst different names, is among the hottest edible flowers in Nigeria. It is available in a wide range of colours, from off-white, cream, and light-weight brown to deep red-purple, and it is offered dried and utilized in a few methods.

The off-white, creamy, brown model is rehydrated and utilized in obe ishapa, a soup well-liked within the southwest that additionally options egusi seeds. The darkish pink model varieties the bottom of a drink, usually mixed with dried ginger slices and complete cloves. To sweeten it naturally, some folks prepare dinner it with pineapple juice and/or the fruit’s flesh and pores and skin, others add tamarind and sweeten it with sugar or honey. It is served each cold and warm.

Nuts and Seeds

Nuts and seeds serve many functions in Nigerian delicacies. They’re eaten alone as snacks, like boiled groundnuts (peanuts) and candied sesame seeds, but additionally integrated into a wide range of dishes.

Many soups are thickened with pastes from sesame seeds and groundnuts and with nut or seed powders, like the bottom meal produced from egusi, the seeds of the bitter melon. Egusi is offered in a number of totally different varieties: complete, with their brittle, mustard-colored shells; shelled; and floor. Floor egusi is distinguished additional in lots of markets as being ‘hand-’ or ‘machine-’ processed, the place the ‘hand’ varieties are dearer, a testomony to the craft of shelling. Egusi is integrated into seasoned shares to make egusi soup, which is usually completed with greens, each leafy and herby.

Fermented nuts and seeds are used as an umami-rich seasoning, just like miso paste or Chinese language black beans. They convey an intense savoriness together with distinctive flavors and aromas. Iru is a small-batch ferment of locust beans, used to season soups, stews, and different dishes. Accessible in markets, it comes as a delicate paste, which readily dissolves in sauces, or as agency, distinct cut up beans. Different fermented seeds produced from castor seeds, sesame seeds, soybeans, melon seeds, and extra are frequent throughout the nation.

Spices and Seasonings

There’s a enormous number of herbs, spices, spice blends, alkaline salts, and inventory/seasoning cubes utilized in Nigerian cooking. They fall into two key classes: conventional Nigerian seasoning, which incorporates yajin kuli, pepper soup spice, and banga spice, and imported seasonings, like “curry powder” and dried thyme. They ship a complete spectrum of flavors from peppery to woodsy, floral, bitter, nutty, heat, and extra. Used individually, or in particular blends, they’re principally integrated into savory dishes, used as rubs for meats and fish, and added to rice dishes, soups, and stews.

Floor dry pepper is among the hottest substances. High quality and coarse blends are floor from slim, dried pink chiles with single or a number of styles of sizzling pink peppers, together with cayenne, hen’s eye, in addition to others. Consider it as our equal to black pepper: It brings warmth to all the pieces, and is used on a regular basis, added to style when seasoning eggs or broth. Even when contemporary chiles are utilized in a dish, you’ll discover us sprinkling a pinch of dry pepper over it. The closest substitute for it’s cayenne pepper not “chili powder” which consists of an assortment of spices.

The definitive style of pepper soup spice is a tribute to the genius of the Niger-Deltans within the south of Nigeria who mix complete, toasted spices in particular ratios to tease out a posh mix that lends its title to Nigeria’s hottest broth. Among the most typical spices used are calabash nutmeg, uda (grains of selim), alligator pepper (grains of paradise), and uziza (African cubeb pepper). This soup works properly with seafood, meat, and greens and is usually served as a starter at Nigerian events and on particular events, though it is also usually made at house.

Fat and Oils

The Nigerian kitchen is stuffed with plant and animal fat and oils, that are use for cooking however they’re additionally integrated into dips and spreads. Plant-based fat and oils come from palms, seeds, and nuts and embrace unrefined pink palm oil, coconut oil, groundnut (peanut) oil, shea butter, atili (the African olive) oil, sesame oil, soybean oil, and a number of others. Palm oil is among the hottest ones and there’s nothing just like the wealthy, thick oil from the red-orange palm fruit of Elaeis guineensis, a local African palm—to not be confused with the extremely industrialized palm (kernel) oil listed in virtually each product throughout grocery store cabinets and aisles in North America. Although you’ll be able to approximate the colour by steeping annatto seeds in vegetable oil, the smoky, vegetal, barely fermented taste is tough to duplicate. That is the bottom of many pots of soup and stew eaten each day throughout Nigeria and in Nigerian houses throughout the diaspora.

Animal fat like man shanu and tallow are notably well-liked within the pastoral north, the place spoonfuls are generally added to pots whereas cooking roots, tubers, and rice, from steamed white rice to Jollof. Man shanu, a creamy-light yellow fats, is a fermented and unchurned unfold produced from contemporary cow milk with the consistency of soppy butter. Tallow from beef and lamb can also be generally used.

Canned and Bagged Components

Many preserved gadgets can be found in a wide range of sizes and packaging, from tins and cans to sachets and cartons. It is quite common to seek out tomato paste and a spread of canned greens like sweetcorn, inexperienced peas, and baked beans in a retailer.

Although contemporary milk and dairy merchandise are frequent within the north, they aren’t as frequent down south, within the east, or west. Preserved milk—evaporated, condensed, and powdered—are used for cooking and baking in addition to in drinks. Drinks like tea, prompt espresso, and chocolate drink powders like Bournvita, Milo, Nesquik, and Ovaltine are well-liked and generally type half of an ideal bread meal, the place slices or items of bread are dunked in cups and mugs of candy, sizzling beverage.

Canned protein—fish like sardines, mackerel, and tuna, in addition to merchandise like corned beef—are well-liked, and so they’re become compound butters or pates and used as spreads for bread, generally with greens folded in. They’re additionally added to fried and stewed eggs, sauces, and integrated into rice dishes, in addition to pottages made with yam, plantain, and potatoes.

Sweeteners

White sugar and honey are the commonest sweeteners, for all the pieces from cups of tea to sweetening cereal and baking. Honey is available in a wide range of colours and flavors, from darkish, wildflower varieties to these with a fermented profile, which are sometimes the product of bee hives which might be near palm bushes.

Much less frequent is scrumptious mazarkwaila, heavy, compact discs of brown sugar, cooked down from sugar cane juice, and processed in the same method to piloncillo or jaggery. Within the north of Nigeria, the place it is made, it is a well-liked addition to drinks and can also be eaten as a snack, bits damaged off and chewed or licked.

The place to Purchase Nigerian Components

You could find all of those substances in a wide range of shops on-line and in African, Afro-Caribbean, Caribbean, and even on the whole grocery shops. So, if you get an opportunity, check out some Nigerian recipes with substances from our retailer.

July 2022