Nigerian Jollof Rice Recipe

Cooking jollof rice, a seasoned, tomatoey rice dish, is a rite of passage for numerous West Africans. For a lot of a long time, my have jollof activity was shaky due to the fact I had bewildered its ubiquity with easiness. I experienced assumed it was quick to make simply due to the fact I experienced eaten it normally, at every single bash, Sunday lunch, and anything in in between, and so didn’t recognize how crucial selected recipe techniques ended up. I might hurry by means of making the stew foundation with out establishing plenty of flavor, select the incorrect sort of rice, and be undisciplined about my cooking process. Some days I’d conclusion up with a superior pot and other times, not. I’ve realized a great deal since then, and now make continuously delectable pots. My largest idea: Sluggish-cooking the rice is 1 of the most important keys to achievement.

Considering a excellent pot of jollof rice necessary very little ability was not the only incorrect assumption I created. I also assumed that it was Nigerian in origin, given that I grew up there and it was a mainstay of the desk. But in 2009, when my fascination in cooking persistently greater pots of jollof deepened, I commenced exploring West African foods and how they traveled the world. It was then that I figured out about the roots of this dish in the kingdom of Jolof, a historic 15th- to 18th-century state in the Wolof-Senegambian region, on the southern edge of the Sahara much to the west of Nigeria. 

So how did jollof find its way across the sub-Saharan coastline? In accordance to James McCann in Stirring the Pot: A Heritage of African Cuisine, the Dyula ethnic group, famed merchants who founded trade routes all through the area centuries in the past, have been dependable for the dispersal of jollof south of the Sahara, getting it with them as they traveled. Nowadays, each and every place in West Africa has a edition of jollof, each reflecting its certain heritage and influences. Many areas past the African continent also have variations that converse to how significantly it has unfold, particularly through the transatlantic slave trade—Lowcountry crimson rice and New Orleans jambalaya in the American South are both equally descended from jollof rice. 

Jollof can get several diverse names based on the area. In its birthplace of Senegal, it retains its Wolof names of thiéboudienne or ceebu jen, and in neighboring Gambia it goes by benachin. The folks of Mali connect with it zaame or nsamé. In the relaxation of French-speaking West Africa—Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coastline, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, and Togo—it’s known as riz au gras (“riz gras” for brief). In English-talking Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, it is identified as jollof. 

There are also limitless shadings of variation from a single version to the next. Even though Senegalese and Ghanaians go for types of fragrant Jasmine rice, Nigerians want parboiled or transformed kinds, these kinds of as Golden Sella basmati rice, which cooks extra immediately and is significantly less prone to mushiness and clumping. In Nigeria, Caribbean-design curry powder, dried thyme, bay leaf, ginger, and garlic are frequent seasoning substances. Distinction that with the well-known Senegalese seasoning of rof, a new parsley paste combined with other aromatics and employed in mix with fermented seafood. A Guinean buddy of mine, meanwhile, provides clean tamarind to her stew foundation.

Total veggies like carrots, eggplant, cabbage, okra, white sweet potatoes, and potatoes aspect in thiéboudienne and other variations from French-speaking West Africa, but not in the Nigerian and Ghanaian variations. 

There are a amount of specifics that work together to supply stellar jollof rice, which I would outline as rice that’s stewed and seasoned to perfection, with an orange-purple coloration and individual grains that are neither really hard nor mush jollof need to not be creamy like risotto. To reduce this outcome, I stir only at times to aid the absorption of the sauce devoid of creating the creamy starchiness that large stirring (a la risotto) makes. I also cook it on small heat for the greater part of the time. When the warmth is way too significant, the pot of rice will cook unevenly and be at possibility of burning at the foundation.  

Some browning on the base layer of rice is desirable, on the other hand. Jollof rice is customarily cooked on the stovetop or in excess of firewood. Overseas, in the diaspora, lots of West Africans have explored and mastered oven-baked techniques, when other people have produced use of rice cookers and InstantPots to occur up with even extra ways. Even though the results are very similar, stovetop and firewood versions are the most straightforward route to “get together” jollof, a version that is defined by its smoky taste and existence of “bottom pot,” the crispy, toasty layer of rice that types on (as the name can make clear) the base of the pot, akin to Spanish socarrat. The direct warmth from underneath is just what is actually desired to make that caramelized, roasty underlayer.

Jollof rice is not viewed as a facet, but the key dish. It is normally paired with beef, chicken, goat, and fish (fried, grilled, or stewed), or eggs (boiled, fried, or scrambled). In Nigeria, it is served with a salad that resembles an amped-up version of coleslaw. It may also be accompanied by moinmoin, a steamed dish manufactured with skinned, pureed black-eyed beans wrapped in the moinmoin leaves that give it its title, or dodo—fried, ripe plantains. At least a single or additional of these accompaniments is considered typical.