Egusi cream pasta is a recipe I have toyed with in my mind for a while. To backtrack a little bit, I have always said that my recipes should be inspired by ingredients available to us. If it looks like a foreign inspiration, as long as the ingredients are available on Nigerian Soil in abundance then I will play with that recipe and push it forward. That being said, I have a lot of mum friends that are constantly looking for dairy alternatives especially milk.
A lot of children have developed allergies to dairy, gluten and a host of other things I don’t think were heavily present in my childhood. I digress. This inspired my thinking about the possibility of Egusi cream. We have seen oat milk, almond milk and soy milk fast become staples in a lot of homes but the prices of these milk alternatives are through the roof especially in Lagos. It has become very hard to keep up.
For this particular recipe, I was a bit of a chicken and went the route I did because I was not sure if I would like it or not. I think there is a certain level of brainwashing we engage in to look down on our ingredients beyond what we already know it to be used for.
Having debated the many outcomes and the many possible ways this could go, I considered just blending the egusi with water and sieving but i thought it may be too thick so what if I didn’t like it? I eventually ended up boiling the egusi with a lot of water and sieving the milk from it. To create a creamy consistency, I thickened with some cornstarch to give the consistency I was looking for. That may not have been necessary if I just blended the egusi with water and sieved. You can try it and let me know how it goes. Please try this Egusi Cream Pasta recipe and let me know if you like it.
RECIPE FOR EGUSI CREAM PASTA
90g Penne Pasta
52g Prawns (Diced)
50g Egusi Powder
10g Stockfish
2 Pieces of Habanero Pepper (Yellow & Red)
25g Onions
10g Garlic
2 Sprigs of Basil
5g Seasoning Powder
1 tsp Black Pepper
1/ tsp White Pepper
1 tsp Italian Seasoning
1/4 Cup of White Wine
10g Butter
10ml Olive Oil
200ml Water (For Egusi)
1 L Water (Boil Pasta)
2g Cornstarch
Method
Boil your pasta till halfway cooked with the stockfish. Take out the stockfish and leave the pasta water for the recipe.
In a pan, heat up your butter and olive oil, sautee your onions and garlic then add your prawns, season with seasoning powder, black pepper, italian seasoning, white pepper and then deglaze with white wine.
Add your pasta water and allow it to simmer. Add your pasta and allow to continue to cook. Toast your egusi powder and then boil with 200 ml of water for about 5 minutes then sieve. Add your sieved liquid to the pasta.
Add your habanero pepper and basil and stir in your dissolved cornstarch. Stir and serve hot.
