Last week Friday, Afrolems was featured on CNN’s article on food bloggers to follow. I was in bed when the article was published and I saw a few notifications on my blog from CNN. You can imagine I jumped out of bed, rubbed my eyes a few times, screamed, pranced and jumped then settled to read the article properly. I am so grateful to God because I am very undeserving of this recognition but He brought it my way. Now on to today’s recipe. Growing up, I hate steamed fish stew but preferred the fried fish version but my mum made sure we had both. Not every time fried food, sometimes steamed food. Either way Nigerian Fish stew is best served with fried fish especially if you are going to eat it with rice or yam or plantain or even pasta. If you are going to have Nigerian fish stew with swallow items, it should be steamed or so the rules say but who cares? Another interesting twist to this dish is my addition of scent leaves otherwise known as basil or elfin or ntong. It gives a lovely dimension of flavour to the fish stew. This stew is best paired with rice, pasta or yam. Enjoy!
PS: For my non-nigerian followers, every time you see a stew recipe on a Nigerian blog, it is tomato based, always tomato based!
Recipe for Nigerian Fish Stew
Ingredients
1 large croaker fish
2 large tomatoes
1 large bell pepper
5 scotch bonnet peppers (ata rodo)
1 medium onion (chopped)
1 medium sized ginger
3 garlic cloves
Seasoning cubes
1 teaspoon Curry
3 small thyme stalks or 1/2 teaspoon of thyme powder
A pinch of chopped scent leaves
Vegetable Oil for frying
Method
Descale, cut, wash and season your fish with 2 blended scotch bonnet peppers, 1 clove of garlic and a seasoning cube.
Heat up your oil for frying on medium heat and fry on both sides till golden brown.
Blend 1 tomato, half of the bell pepper, scotch bonnet peppers, ginger and garlic and set aside.
Chop the rest of the tomato and bell pepper and set aside.
In a separate pot, scoop 1 cooking spoon of oil into your pot and heat up.
Fry your onions and chopped tomato and bell pepper on medium heat.
Pour in the blended mix, season with your thyme, seasoning cubes and a teaspoon of curry for about 8-10 minutes on medium heat. Be sure to check that your sauce is not burning, if it is reduce the heat.
Add the fish but stir lightly in the sauce so the fish does not break apart and finally add the scent leaves or basil.
Serve your Nigerian fish stew hot!
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