Afrolems | Nigerian Food Recipes | Toronto Catering | African Recipes| Nigerian Food Blog | Savour The Flavour. Afrolems is an African food blog with a specialization in Nigerian Food. Afrolems is also a catering service that is located in the Greater Toronto Area and caters to events and has food for the week orders for students, bachelors and ladies who do not like to cook. Stock up on home cooked meals by Afrolems by filling the Contact form. For Prices, Check the Prices and Packages Page. You can fill out the form on the Prices and Packages page or email your order to afrolems@gmail.com . Afrolems only accepts orders 2 days in advance including parties and the funds must be sent at this time. Savour the flavour of Afrolems!!!!

Planning Your Nigerian Wedding Menu

Wedding Catering is the part that stresses most Nigerian brides out especially if your wedding is going to be a huge one. Even if your wedding is small, there are still a lot of details to consider when planning your menu, finding the right caterer and satisfying your guests. Have you ever heard people say; “I have to eat before going to that wedding incase I don’t get food or I don’t like the food.” This happens more often than you think. Guests arrive and the caterer and his/her team do not cater to your guests appropriately. They are told to serve the older guests or the parents’ friends first and most times the bride and groom’s friends do not get anything to eat. Sometimes the caterer during the tasting session cooks really tasty food and during your wedding turns a simple meal like Jollof Rice into Rice porridge. Nobody wants that! The choice of menu is always critical as well for a Nigerian wedding as Nigerians aren’t very adventurous with food. They stick to what they know and you trying to be adventurous with your menu only ends up with you having a ton of food wasted and money down the drain. There are a few creative ways to address these issues.

Planning your Menu

Marrying a Nigerian (Same Tribe) – With this Menu, you can introduce a few of the simple dishes you have in your culture. However, it is advisable to have very little quantities of those traditional dishes and stay with the staples like Jollof Rice, Fried Rice etc.

Marrying a Nigerian (Different Tribe) – Unless your spouse doesn’t mind, you can also introduce one or 2 traditional dishes from both parties in addition to the wedding staples. If introducing these dishes are a bit of a hassle and expensive, go the safe route and mix Nigerian dishes with a few Chinese dishes as Nigerians are familiar and more accepting of Chinese dishes at weddings.

Marrying a Non-Nigerian – I have had many people ask how to fuse the Nigerian Menu with an American or Canadian Menu for example. I usually advise that they get a Nigerian Caterer to consult with the caterer of their choice if that person isn’t Nigerian. I have also seen weddings that have the brides’ caterer and the grooms’ caterer so that eliminates the fusion problem. However, if you are going to have Nigerian guests at that wedding, do not alienate them with foreign dishes because they would not eat them. There are a few adventurous Nigerians but they only make up a small number.

Look out for the Posts on Finding the Right Caterer and satisfying your guests.

Image : WillYVerse: http://www.willyverse.com

Sample Standard Nigerian Wedding Menu

Jollof Rice

Fried Rice

Fried Plantain (Dodo)

Assorted Meats in Stews

Chicken in Stew

Stewed Fried Fish

Cole Slaw

Moin Moin

Ofada Rice & Ayamashe Stew

Pounded Yam

Amala

Starch

Gbegiri

Efo- riro

Banga Soup

Edikang Ikong

Okro

Small Chops – Puff Puff, Spring Rolls, Asun, Samosa

Are you a bride or bride to be? What are some of the challenges you have faced planning your menu for your wedding?

About these ads

Afrolems Met Chef Fregz : Hausa Inspired

Appetizers, Cooking with Chefs, Drink Recipes, Goat Meat Recipes, Hausa Recipes, Rice recipes, Standard Nigerian Meals May 17, 2013 Comments: 7

For many people that live in Nigeria, you must have heard of Chef Fregz or seen him on TV( Knorr Taste Quest Show..ring a bell?). This dude has amazingggggg culinary skills and is super friendly. I always heard about this guy that went to Olashore (High school in Nigeria) that did amazing things with food and I was like okkk let’s see first. Usually when people shout about chefs i’m a bit wary because I never trust their judgements. Then one fateful day, I saw a picture of Chef Fregz eba and Okro on Instagram. I didn’t even need to be told that this guy had awesome skills and I wanted to meet him. Fast forward a few months and here we are, cooking together and playing with Nigerian ingredients. It was definitely a fun day. Here is what we made;

Masa

Kunun Aya

Spicy Curried Goat with Tuwo Rice

Masa (Serves 5)

Ingredients

2 Cups of Tuwo rice (Substitute – jasmine rice)

1 tablespoon of yeast

1 tablespoon sugar (optional)

1 tablespoon of honey or syrup (optional)

1 cooking spoon of oil

1/2 teaspoon of grated ginger

Method

Soak one cup of the Tuwo rice in water and add 1/2 the tablespoon of yeast. Allow it sit for 4- 5 hours

Boil the other cup of rice and mash it and set aside.

In a blender, pour in the soaked rice and the mashed rice and blend till smooth. Some people use the rice flour to avoid all these steps but I like to go the authentic route.

In the blended rice mixture, pour in your grated ginger and sugar and the other tablespoon of yeast and leave to rise for about 30 minutes or less.

In a pancake puff pan, grease the pan a little and add the masa mixture to fry and flip as well to brown on the other side. Serve with honey or maple syrup if you didn’t add sugar or the sugar wasn’t enough.

Some people eat Masa with a pepper sauce. It is completely a preferential choice.

Kunun Aya (Serves 2)

Ingredients

1 cup of Tiger nuts

1/2 cup of coconut milk (optional)

1 teaspoon of grated ginger

Pineapples to garnish

Method

Soak the tiger nuts in water for 2 hours

Blend the tiger nuts with 1/2 cup of water

Squeeze out the milk from the nuts.

Mix it with your coconut milk and ginger and serve with pineapple.

We were going to go the route of the pina colada by blending the pineapples and adding them but we decided not to

Spicy Curried Goat with Tuwo Rice (Serves 2)

Ingredients

1/4 Pound of Goat Meat

1.5 Tablespoons of Curry

1/2 cup of Coconut Milk

3 cherry tomatoes

5 scotch bonnet peppers or ata rodo (Reduce if you do not like spicy food)

1 cube of seasoning

1/4 bulb of onion

1 cooking spoon of Vegetable Oil

Fresh Thyme

Tuwo Rice (Substitute – Jasmine Rice)

Method

Season and Boil your goat meat and set aside. (I stole some goat meat from Chef Fregz Asun dish )

Wash and Boil your Rice and set aside.

Chop your onions and pepper and set aside.

Heat up the oil and fry the onions and pepper.

Add the cherry tomatoes whole. (These are those really tiny tomatoes)

Pour in your coconut milk and allow to simmer on medium heat.

Add your seasoning, fresh thyme and curry.

Pour in your goat meat and allow to simmer for low heat for another 3 minutes.

Serve with your Tuwo Rice.

Chef Fregz helping me Style the food

Sneak Preview of Chef Fregz Asun and Puff Puff Details on Bella Naija. Click Here

To Find Tiger nuts in the UK, Canada or US, Follow the links below; Found them online

UK: http://www.realfoods.co.uk/product/586/real-foods-tiger-nuts-bulk-wholesale

Canada: http://well.ca/products/ecoideas-organic-whole-tigernuts_64925.html

US:http://www.tigernutsusa.com/

Ghanian Yam Balls or Yele Kakro

Yam Recipes May 8, 2013 1 Comment

Yesterday, I tweeted about this Yam ball recipe I discovered from this Ghanian site Waakye. I couldn’t wait to try it because I had recently been thinking of something different to do with yam. I did not follow the recipe exactly as I like to add my twist to things but I did do most of what was suggested. I also researched some other recipes of the Yam balls or Yele Kakro as the Ghanians call it and found some people added blended tomatoes to the mix. I wanted to be safe on my first trial. Trust me, I would be experimenting with this more. Hope you enjoy the recipe and if you know any different way to make this, Be sure to leave a comment and let us know.

Ingredients

1 chunky slice of yam

1 cup of seasoned breadcrumbs (You can season this with maggi)

1 egg

1 small piece of fish

1/2 teaspoon of dry pepper

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1 tablespoon of butter

Oil for deep frying

Method

Peel and boil the yam till very soft

Whisk the egg in a bowl and set aside

Mash the fish as well and set aside

Mash(Pound) the yam with the butter, salt and pepper.

Grab a little yam and place a bit of the mashed fish in the middle and roll into a ball.

Dip in the egg and coat with breadcrumbs and set aside.

In hot oil, Deep fry the yam balls till golden brown.

Serve with a pepper sauce mix, peri peri sauce or as a stand alone appetizer.

How to Clean Shrimps and Prawns

General Afrolems Posts, Shrimp Recipes May 7, 2013 Leave a comment

Recently, I have started monitoring how people arrive at my blog through their Google Searches and that has been really helpful in crafting a few of my posts. This post is one of such post. Someone recently searched how to clean shrimps so this post is for you whoever you are.

Steps to Cleaning Shrimps and Prawn

There are several methods to dressing shrimps and prawn as different people like to eat them differently. For example my mum and I like to leave half the shell on so we can chew on the shells later especially for the jumbo shrimps. Some people cannot stand the shells and that’s ok. Some people like completely bare shrimps and some others like everything plus the head on the prawn or shrimp. It’s really a preferential thing.

For the Full Shrimp with everything on, You may want to take off the extra hangers on with a pair of kitchen scissors. That’s all the antennas and the legs of the shrimp. For the leg of the shrimps, you can easily break them off. For the antennas, if they don’t come off easily by you pulling them out, then use a pair of Kitchen scissors.

For the Half-dressed Shrimp, Take off the head by pinching it towards the bottom part of the head of the shrimp or prawn. You would also need to pinch towards the bottom of the tail of the shrimp so you can pull out the tail without breaking the shrimp.

For the full dressing, You need to completely peel off the shell on the body of the shrimp; head and tail inclusive. You would turn the shrimp over and devein it by using a small knife to cut across the back of the shrimp or prawn and pull out the black thread-like substance. Do the same for the front of the shrimp and rinse it.

Promo Post: TSC Foods

Promo Post Series May 3, 2013 Leave a comment

Tsc Foods is an elite first-rate catering management and food vending company based in Lagos. Fast becoming the preferred vendor to corporate organizations and private individuals, we provide the tastiest and the most exquisite finger foods- Samosa, Spring-roll, BBQ Chicken, BBQ Fish, Peppered Snail, Peppered Gizzard, Stick-meat, Prawns, etc. We delight pleasure in what we do and we can deliver anywhere.

For your special events (Luncheon, weddings, birthdays, picnics etc)

Please call us on 07026764061,

BB PIN: 22322230

Brunch at Southern Sun Ikoyi Lagos

General Afrolems Posts, Restaurant Posts May 2, 2013 Comments: 5

Sunday Morning brunch after church wasn’t exactly something I grew up with. It was more a case of church is over, head on to Mr Biggs or Tastee fried chicken to pick up something quick or my mum was going to cook up a storm. That was what I was used to.

Fast forward a few years and we are having brunch at Southern Sun in Ikoyi. The ambiance was lovely and the waiters were very courteous. Not something you would typically find at a Nigerian restaurant. They smiled as they served us and made small but funny conversation while serving the drinks. Everything from the plates to the utensils were all clean. Trust me, I’ve been to some supposedly high class restaurants and was appalled by what I saw but that is talk for another day.

The people that walked into the restaurant were your typical Lagos people who like to form (lol) Couldn’t help but chuckle at some of them. My mum and I went around looking at what was available and we were surprised to find Asun on the menu. “Who has Asun so early on in the day? ” After our amazing meal, My mum and I decided to speak to the Sous Chef at Southern Sun, Mr Stanley Mwangi. He was telling us that Nigerians loooove their food. In his words; “Nigerians can eat the same thing in the morning, afternoon and come to Southern Sun and eat the same thing.” He is Kenyan by the way and makes amazing Nigerian food. If you haven’t been to Southern Sun, I’d say wear your really nice clothes (So you don’t feel like a lesser relative) and get ready to have an amazing dining experience.