How to make Samosa (from India)

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Samosa is an Indian delicacy but Nigerians love it so much!
It is now a constant feature at every party. Be sure to look for it in the small chops section and hurry because it is usually one of the first to disappear.

 

Ingredients for Samosa

The following ingredients make 8 samosas:

The dough:

• 60g (2 oz) plain flour (all purpose flour)
• 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
• A pinch of salt
• Warm water
• Vegetable oil for deep-frying

The filling:

• 2 medium Irish potatoes
• 2 handfuls of green peas
• 100g minced beef
• 2 cooking spoons of vegetable oil
• 1 big stock cube
• 1 stalk of spring onion (cut into thin circles)
• 1 teaspoon of curry powder (for colour, no chilli)
• Salt and ground cayenne pepper (to taste)

Feel free to customize the filling to your taste but the classic Indian Samosa must contain Irish potatoes and green peas.

How to make Spring Rolls (from Asia) spring rolls nigerian small chop Spring Rolls originated from Asia but Nigerians have recently been bitten by the Spring Rolls bug! I love Spring Rolls because once you get the Spring Rolls Wrappers right, you can fill them up with anything and they will taste great. They are usually filled with vegetables (hence spring) but I love to add beef to my spring rolls filling. How to make Spring Rolls [Video] Ingredients for Spring Rolls For the Spring Rolls wrappers: You can use store-bought wrappers for your spring rolls or you can make them yourself. To see how to make them at home, see: Homemade Spring Rolls Wrappers. For the filling: You can use any combinations of beef and/or vegetables for your spring rolls filling. The following quantities of ingredients will make make a filling for 15 spring rolls. I use: 50g minced beef A handful green peas 1 spring onion 1 medium carrot 1 small green bell pepper Habanero (Scotch bonnet) pepper (to taste) 1 Stock cube 1 teaspoon thyme A small quantity of vegetable oil For sealing the spring rolls: 1 tablespoon plain flour (all purpose flour) 2 tablespoons cold water See the video below for details of how to make Spring Rolls.

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Spring Rolls originated from Asia but Nigerians have recently been bitten by the Spring Rolls bug!
I love Spring Rolls because once you get the Spring Rolls Wrappers right, you can fill them up with anything and they will taste great. They are usually filled with vegetables (hence spring) but I love to add beef to my spring rolls filling.
How to make Spring Rolls [Video]

Ingredients for Spring Rolls

For the Spring Rolls wrappers:

You can use store-bought wrappers for your spring rolls or you can make them yourself. To see how to make them at home, see: Homemade Spring Rolls Wrappers.

For the filling:

You can use any combinations of beef and/or vegetables for your spring rolls filling.
The following quantities of ingredients will make make a filling for 15 spring rolls. I use:

• 50g minced beef
• A handful green peas
• 1 spring onion
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 small green bell pepper
• Habanero (Scotch bonnet) pepper (to taste)
• 1 Stock cube
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• A small quantity of vegetable oil

For sealing the spring rolls:

• 1 tablespoon plain flour (all purpose flour)
• 2 tablespoons cold water

See the video below for details of how to make Spring Rolls. The written recipe is exclusive to the

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Spring Rolls originated from Asia but Nigerians have recently been bitten by the Spring Rolls bug!
I love Spring Rolls because once you get the Spring Rolls Wrappers right, you can fill them up with anything and they will taste great. They are usually filled with vegetables (hence spring) but I love to add beef to my spring rolls filling.

Ingredients for Spring Rolls

For the Spring Rolls wrappers:

You can use store-bought wrappers for your spring rolls or you can make them yourself. To see how to make them at home, see: Homemade Spring Rolls Wrappers.

For the filling:

You can use any combinations of beef and/or vegetables for your spring rolls filling.
The following quantities of ingredients will make make a filling for 15 spring rolls. I use:

• 50g minced beef
• A handful green peas
• 1 spring onion
• 1 medium carrot
• 1 small green bell pepper
• Habanero (Scotch bonnet) pepper (to taste)
• 1 Stock cube
• 1 teaspoon thyme
• A small quantity of vegetable oil

For sealing the spring rolls:

• 1 tablespoon plain flour (all purpose flour)
• 2 tablespoons cold water

See the video below for details of how to make Spring Rolls. The written recipe is exclusive to the 

Nigerian Groundnut Soup (Peanut Soup)

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Groundnut Soup (Peanut Soup) is next best soup after Egusi Soup. It is prepared the same way as Egusi Soup so you can apply the two methods of preparing Egusi Soup to Groundnut Soup with great results.
Nigerian Groundnut Soup [Video]
If you cannot find the ingredients to cook Egusi Soup where you live, Groundnut Soup is a great alternative. I must say that it has some sweetness to it that takes a bit of getting used to if you have not tasted the soup before.

Ingredients for Groundnut Soup

• 500g raw peeled groundnuts (peanuts)
• Assorted meat and fish. I use:
  • Beef
  • Shaki (cow tripe)
  • Dry fish
  • Stock fish
• Palm Oil
• A small bunch of Nigerian Pumpkin leaves or 6 cubes Frozen Spinach or Bitterleaf
• 2 tablespoons ground crayfish
• 2 big stock cubes
• Salt & ground dry cayenne pepper: to taste

Notes about the ingredients

1. Palm oil mainly adds colour and sometimes taste to Nigerian soups so add enough quantity to colour the soup to your liking.
2. Bitter leaves help tone down the sweetness of this soup so if you do NOT have a sweet tooth, then you should use bitterleaves in preparing this soup. Let's put it this way: if you prefer bitter leaves for your Egusi Soup, then you should use them for Groundnut Soup too.
3. You can also use fresh habanero peppers in place of dry cayenne peppers.

Tool

Before you cook Groundnut Soup

1. Soak the stockfish and dry fish for a few hours. The length of time depends on how hard the stock fish is. Some even need to be boiled a bit. Mine soaks in under 1 hour. When soft, clean the fish, remove the bones and separate them into small pieces.
2. Roast the raw groundnuts in a pan, stirring constantly till they look like this. Set aside to cool down completely then grind into powder with a dry mill.
3. Wash and cut the Nigerian pumpkin leaves into tiny pieces. If using frozen spinach, cut into small pieces and wring out the excess water when fully defrosted.
4. Prepare other ingredients: grind the pepper and grind the crayfish.

Cooking Directions

1. Start cooking the shaki first as it is the toughest meat in the bunch. Always keep water to the same level as the contents of the pot and top it up as you cook.
2. When the shaki starts to curl, add the dry fish and stockfish.
3. When the shaki is almost done, add beef and stock cubes and cook till all the meat and fish are well done.
4. Add the crayfish, salt and pepper, cover and cook till it boils.
5. Transfer the meat and fish to another pot/container leaving the stock in the pot.
6. Add the ground groundnuts and stir very well till there are no lumps. Reduce the heat to very low and start cooking.
7. Stir every 5 minutes and top up the water if necessary. This mixture burns easily so watch it closely and stir as often as necessay.
8. Cook till a thin film of clear oil appears on the surface. This should take about 15 minutes. Add palm oil and stir very well.
9. Add the beef and fish, stir and cook on low heat till it boils. For those who prefer their groundnut soup without vegetables, the soup is ready at this time. If you prefer it with vegetables then go to step 10.
10. Add the vegetables, stir and leave to simmer. Stir again and it is done.

1. Serve Groundnut Soup with any Nigerian Fufu meal.

Why mango is good for you

Mango boosts our ability to combat cancer, heart disease and eye problems.

Faced with the enticing fragrance of Alphonso mangoes, nagging concerns about food miles and air freighting have a tendency to fly out the window. The fibrous cucumber-meets-courgette flesh of the Tommy Atkins – our supermarkets' cosmetically groomed pet variety – is easy to resist. But the Indian Alphonso and the Pakistani Langra and Chaunsa mangoes, when they appear from May onwards, are utterly irresistible. Uneven in colour, with imperfections on the skin, they come tissue-wrapped inside snug little boxes bedecked with sub-continental tinsel and exotic cargo labels worthy of Indiana Jones. These subcontinental mangoes are picked mature and are usually rewardingly ripe. Select those that are soft, not squashy, and use their scent as an indicator of eating quality.

Why mangoes are good for you

Mangoes contain a store of phenolic and carotenoid compounds (gallotannins, alpha-carotene, beta-cryptoxanthin and more) that seem to offer some protection against several types of cancer. Vitamin A and beta-carotene in mango can boost your eye health, while vitamin B6 helps control homocysteine in the blood. High levels of this amino acid are associated with increased risk of heart disease and stroke. The soluble fibre in mangoes slows down the release of sugar into your blood, but mangoes are sweet, so not the best fruit choice for slimmers.

Cardamom labneh with mango and rosewater

You'll need a new J-cloth or clean muslin to make this labneh, a fresh cheese made by straining yoghurt, preferably overnight. It has many sweet and savoury uses and makes a good fresh accompaniment to fruit.
Serves 4
½ tbsp soft brown sugar
8 cardamom pods, deseeded and crushed to a powder
Zest and juice of ½ lime
300g Greek yoghurt
1 tbsp honey
1 tsp rosewater
2 mangoes
30g shelled pistachios, roughly chopped
1 Combine the sugar, cardamom and lime zest, then stir into the yoghurt.
2 Scald some muslin or a new J-cloth in boiling water and leave to cool. Wring it out then use it to line a sieve big enough to hold the yoghurt. Place the sieve over a bowl and tip the yoghurt into it. Tie up the cloth and give it a squeeze. Leave to strain overnight, or for a full day if you have the time. Give it a squeeze occasionally.
3 Make the syrup by bringing 100ml water and the honey to the boil. Simmer until the mixture thickens, leave to cool and then add the lime juice and rosewater.
4 Peel the mango, carefully slicing the flesh from the central stone and cutting into lengths. Lay the slices in a dish and pour over the cooled syrup.
5 To serve, turn the labneh out of the sieve and cut into quarters. Top with mango slices and syrup, then scatter a few pistachios on top.

The 5:2 diet – feasts for fast days

 

The fasting diet, otherwise known as the 5:2, restricts calories for two days a week.

For the first time since university I am on a diet. Somehow, I've become a calorie-counter, someone who weighs out porridge oats and drinks herbal tea. In other words, the kind of person I've always pitied.

The thing is, I'm actually quite enjoying it – enjoying being a relative term, of course. In an ideal world, I'd boast the kind of robust metabolism that laughs in the face of cooking six bakewell tarts an afternoon, but I don't. And since I started my Perfect recipe column a couple of years ago, I've noticed the pounds slowly creeping on. There's a lot to love about my job, but it does make it almost impossible to eat healthily.
The fasting diet, otherwise known as the 5:2 because of the format – five days of normal eating a week and two in which you restrict your calories (500kcal for women, 600kcal for men) – seemed to offer a glimmer of hope for my hips. It's basically the diet for people who like food. Everyone from Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall to wine writer Fiona Beckett has been boring on about fast days, and if they could do it, well, so could I.
So far, I've managed two months. As someone who's never made a habit of weighing themselves, I can only tell you that I think I've lost about 10lb since I started, which includes a two-week period over Easter where I gave myself a bit of a break, but only put back on 1lb.
The odd thing was, after Easter I was impatient to get going again. The 5:2 already feels like a long-term project. It's not difficult to stick to either. After all, if you really want a biscuit, you can always have one tomorrow – a thought I find extremely cheering.
Many people I've spoken to seem to avoid cooking at all on a fast day, reasoning perhaps that it simply puts temptation in their way. Indeed, in her book, the Fast Diet, co-authored with Dr Michael Mosley, whose 2012 BBC Horizon programme on fasting kickstarted interest in the idea, Mimi Spencer advises preparing food in advance, and keeping it simple, "aiming for fast-day flavour without effort".
I couldn't disagree more. For me, the challenge of devising satisfying recipes that fit within the daily 500-kcal limit has kept fast days interesting, and frankly, if you're only going to be eating two small meals a day, heating them up in the microwave makes things even more depressing. Here are a few tips I've found useful so far, and three of my favourite fast-day recipes …
• Low-calorie cooking is all about strong flavours: pungent spices, zesty lemon juice and salty soy sauce will all help to distract your attention from the missing calories, as will lots of garlic and big handfuls of fresh herbs.
• Don't be too hard on yourself. Usually I sniffily avoid artificial sweeteners, but a cold glass of slimline tonic with a slice of lime and plenty of ice goes down a treat when everyone else is glugging wine. I've even been known to indulge in a low-calorie pot of jelly when I'm feeling particularly wild.
• Carbs are rarely worth the calories. A paltry 50g of brown rice takes up over a third of your daily calorie count. Save them for tomorrow and fill up on vegetables and berries instead.
• Pickles such as gherkins (14kcal per 100g) and miso soups (20-30kcal a cup) are your friends for snacks.
• Drink lots. Sparkling water, evil diet drinks and weird and wonderful teas will keep you occupied mid-afternoon.
• Embrace your inner nerd and invest in a set of electronic scales and a calorie-counting book or app, or you'll find it impossible to measure your intake accurately.

Sweet spiced porridge

(Serves 1, 202kcal)
40g porridge oats
Grating of nutmeg
Pinch of cinnamon
Pinch of salt
5g mixed peel
10g currants
Put the oats into a small pan with about twice as much water. Heat gently and stir until they're thick and creamy. Add more water if you prefer them runnier. Season with nutmeg, cinnamon and a pinch of salt. Stir in the mixed peel and currants and spoon into a bowl.

Roasted broccoli, garlic and chilli soup

(Serves 2, 200kcal each)
600g broccoli (2 medium heads)
4 cloves of garlic, unpeeled
1 tbsp olive oil
1 tsp chilli flakes
600ml chicken or vegetable stock
1 unwaxed lemon
10g grated parmesan
Preheat the oven to 200C. Cut the broccoli into florets and chop the stalk into large chunks. Put in a baking dish with the garlic and toss well with the olive oil, chilli and some coarse sea salt. Roast for about 20 minutes until tender and the broccoli florets are beginning to char. Put the chunks of stalk in a food processor, along with the larger florets. Squeeze the garlic from its skin and add to the stock. Whizz until smoothish. Pour into a pan and reheat, diluting slightly if you prefer a thinner soup. Grate in the zest of half a lemon and add a squeeze of juice. Season to taste. Spoon into bowls, and top with the remaining florets, and parmesan. Serve immediately.

Frozen yoghurt with berries

(Serves 1, 120kcal or 100kcal without the honey)
150g frozen berries
100g fat-free Greek yoghurt
1tsp honey (optional)
Blend half the berries with the yoghurt in a food processor until smooth. Add the honey and whizz again, then taste and add a little more lemon if necessary (you can also add more honey, but bear in mind each teaspoon adds 20kcal). Scoop into a bowl or glass and top with the remaining berries.

How to make poashed mushroom egg