Recipe: Moi Moi

Woke up Saturday morning with a strong craving for moi-moi.  When i'm excited about getting a particular task done my mind is fixed on it and can get everybody around me excited about the task too. I eventually got my mum and sister to be my assistant chefs. There's something about eating moi-moi made with leaves, it gives it a very unique and delicious taste. Had to rush to the market to get the moi moi leaves and some other ingredients.

Decided to prepare moi moi my style and share on my page. So here goes......

Ingredients

• 4  small cups of beans
• 2 medium sized Titus fish
• 3 medium sized onions.
• Vegetable oil and or margarine
• 2 Knorr cubes
• Salt
• Moi moi leaves

Moi-moi is the one of Nigerian food recipe that is prepared cold. All the mixing and adding of ingredient is done off the stove. Once you start cooking, there's no going back! You cannot decide to add more salt or ingredient. So getting it right at the mixing stage is very important.

Continue for method......

Method

I usually like to soak the beans for about 15-20 minutes. This enables me remove the coat easily without too much hassle. I particularly like to get all the beans coat off and my sister believes i'm a little obsessed  in my bid to get out all the brown  coat. When i'm finally satisfied the brown coat is completely off, i'll soak for about 30 minutes in prep for blending. Next, add the Tatashe, red peper  and 3  bulbs of onions. Then blend it all together until it forms a  beans paste or pudding. We usually prefer to blend at a shop down my street; blending with a local machine makes the beans paste smoother than when the home blender is used.

Next, place the beans paste into a container.  Add warm water to loosen the paste until you've achieved medium consistency, ensure that  the paste does not become too light though.

Add about 2 cooking spoons of vegetable oil. I usually like to add few scoops of margarine as well, it gives it a nice aroma ( and also a delicious taste)

I'll then added the knorr cubes with meat stock (if available). Stir the mixture very well.

Thoroughly wash the moi-moi leaves and cut off some of the stalk. Pad the base of the pot with the cut off stalk.

The next step is the put the beans paste in the leaves. Add generous amount of mashed titus fish into the beans paste before closing up the leaves. Wrapping the beans paste in leaves take some amount of skill. I used to watch my mum do this and thought "That's easy peasy, i can do that!" Its not so easy o! The first time i tried it years back, it was a mini disaster. I eventually got it right with practice, you can get to be a pro too.

When all the moi moi has been securely wrapped and placed in the pot, add water and keep closed for about an hour. The moi moi when cooked with leaves tend to cook fastest, compared to that prepared in plastic/ aluminium bowl with cover.

Confirm that the moi moi is done by putting a knife through it, if the knife is stained but the moi moi paste, then the moi moi is not done. If the knife just has a slight smear of moi, then its done. Also when you cut through the moi moi, the insides will be set and not watery.

Serve warm.

You can eat alone, with rice, pap, or garri *wink*