Nigerian Style Oven Baked Fish And Vegetables

This is my first attempt ever at baking fish in an oven at home and I think I’m hooked on this recipe. Thinking about it, its kind of strange because I do cook quite a fair share of grilled chicken, steak even prawns in the oven but for some reason I would only cook my fish on an open grill or griddle. I was inspired to try this recipe, after I visited my sister inlaw for dinner recently and she dished up this gourmet style looking grilled fish. I enjoyed her fish so thoroughly, I decided to give the recipe a spin but with my own twist to it. This recipe comes highly recommended, it is so easy to make, yet very very tasty. It’s also super healthy, which is something I strive to achieve with my meals these days. You can easily have your 5- A-day in this one meal, with its combination of vegetables that are melt in the mouth delicious. It’s currently the newest addition to my arsenal of recipes for date nights with the hubs and when I want something quick and easy to entertain guests.

Here’s what you need to make it.

Ingredients

For The Fish

•  Whole Croaker/ Tilapia/ Mackerel/ Red snapper / Cat Fish (Any Fish of your choice, I used Croaker)

•  Oyster sauce

•  Soy sauce

•  Red Chilli Peppers

•  Nsukka peppers ( Some people call this Cameroun peppers. Its sun dried chilli and the flavor is out of this world)

•  Garlic clove

•  Ginger

•  Oil ( I used sesame seed oil)

•  Cube seasoning ( I used Knorr)

For The Baked Vegetables
•  A knob of Butter

•  Carrot

•  Cabbage

•  Irish Potatoes

•  Black Pepper

Directions

1. Clean, descale, and gut fish. Make about an inch deep cuts across both sides of the fish and set aside.

2. Blend together some oil, knorr cubes, ginger, garlic, soy sauce, oyster sauce and all peppers, with some water to make a slighly loose paste.

3. Rub in blended pepper into fish. Massage into every opening of fish, you might need gloves to do this, the mixture is quite spicy. 

Put in the fridge to marinate for at least an hour. I left mine for about 6hhrs.

4. Chop all vegetables into small chunks or slices, spice with some black pepper and salt. Transfer into a foil wrap. Add a generous knob of butter and close competely.

5. Wrap up marinated fish in foil paper and bake together with vegetables in a hot oven (270C) for about one hour.

6. 10-15mins to the end of the cooking time, open foil paper of fish and put some holes through the foil paper to drain off the fish stock (Liquid). Continue cooking with foil wrap open until the fish has a crispy top. Bring out fish and vegetables from oven at the same time and serve hot.

There's my fish! served rustic, no frills just full on flavour. Trust me this is one recipe you want to try.

Notes:  After I dished out the vegetables I realised it could have done with more colours, so for my next attempt I would try using large red, green, and yellow peppers and possibly some aubergines and sweet potatoes.

Tried it? Let me know what you did differently and how it came out.

Bon Appétit

Food I love - Coconut Chocolate Banana Bread

 These days, I try to really watch my intake of pastries and desserts, If I have to have some, I usually watch my portions or look for healthy alternatives. However, there are some desserts that you just can’t pass on, today’s recipe is one of such for me, it has some of the unhealthy goodness my tummy just wants to have sometimes…. Cream cheese and chocolate hello! This is one of those times I gladly lose my will power and consume “empty calories”, which in my world is defined as any meal that is “worth” pushing your healthy eating habits to the back burner simply because it just tastes divine! However, If your resolves are made of steel and you really want to make this healthier, then try using low fat cheese, skimmed milk, low fat butter and maybe whole wheat flour and some nuts, I’ll try that next time, for today this is how I roll!

These are the ingredients you would need.

·         2 tablespoons butter, softened

·         2 tablespoons cream cheese

·         1 cup white sugar

·         1 egg

·         2 cups flour

·         2 teaspoons baking powder

·         1/2 teaspoon baking soda

·         A pinch of salt

·         1 cup mashed overripe bananas (2- 3 large bananas)

·         1/2 cup milk

·         2 tablespoons liquor,  dark rum is especially very good, or rum flavoring 

·         2 teaspoons lime juice

·         1 teaspoon vanilla extract/essence, extract is better

·         Grated coconut

·         Chocolate chips

·         Topping

·         1/4 cup brown sugar

·         2 teaspoons unsalted butter

·         2 teaspoons lime juice

·         2 teaspoons dark rum, or rum flavoring 

·         2 tablespoons grated coconut

Directions

1. Preheat oven to about 175 degrees C. Lightly grease two loaf pans.
2. Beat together 2 tablespoons of softened butter and cream cheese in a large bowl until fluffy. Slowly beat in sugar until well incorporated. Add the egg and mix well

3. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a separate bowl.

4. In a different bowl, mix together the bananas, milk, 2  tablespoons rum, lime juice, and vanilla essence; stir well.

4. Gradually combine all 3 mixtures, that is the flour mixture, butter and the mashed bananas. Continue folding in until completely mixed together.

5.Fold in grated coconut and chocolate chips.

6. Pour the mixture into the loaf pans, and bake in the preheated oven until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about one hour. When finished, cool for 10 minutes in the pan, remove, and finish cooling on a wire rack.

7. After you take the banana bread out of the oven, prepare the topping by stirring together the brown sugar, remaining butter, lime juice, and 2 teaspoons of rum in a small saucepan over low heat. Bring to a simmer stirring constantly; cook until the sugar has dissolved and the mixture is smooth, about one minute. Remove from heat, and stir in coconut.

8.  Make incisions on the loaf then spoon the topping over the loaves while they are still warm, the incision would help the topping penetrate the loaf. The topping will harden slightly when the loaf cools.

The longer the bread keeps, the more intense the its flavours, It’s a great alternative to plain bread, I love to have it the morning after with coffee or tea for breakfast, heaven!

Notes:  I plan on trying it with a lot more dark rum next time, which is how it’s done in the Caribbean, I hear its flavour is even better when more dark rum is used. I would also try using half the quantity of milk and the other half would be coconut milk just so that I can have a more intense coconut flavour and finally I'll probably add some crushed nuts to the topping. Will let you know how that turns out! To get two large loaves like mine, triple the quantity of the ingredients. 

Tried it?  let me know what you did differently and how it came out.

Bon Appétit

Food I love - Nigerian Style Spicy Oven Chicken

Today's recipe is a quick recipe post to share one of the ways I prepare my chicken. If you follow this blog, you can probably tell that I love chicken and eat a whole lot of it. Chicken plays a large part in my dietary habit because its quite easy to make into a gazillion of tasty and quick recipes and its also a form of white meat which is a lot healthier than red meat. I also share a similar love for seafood but I find chicken more easily accessible and a lot easier to cook and manipulate.

Today's recipe is quite spicy, because we Nigerians love spicy foods, usually I would use a mix of Nsukka peppers, Yellow and red peppers for that extra kick Nigerians love. But I had just red peppers available and it turned out fine. 

These are the Ingredients you would need

Chicken - Any parts works well with recipe, skin or skinless is also fine

Red peppers

Ginger

Garlic

White wine vinegar

Barbecue suace

Fish Sauce or light soy sauce

Honey

Knorr cubes

Vegetable oil

                 

1. Mix together white wine vinegar, fish sauce, honey, and knorr cubes and set aside.

                   

2. Blend together peppers, ginger, garlic and some vegetable oil.

                 

 3. Mix together the two group of ingredients from above and divide into two parts. (One part is reserved for basting the chicken while cooking).

                   

 4. Now, pour one part of marinade into already cleaned chicken and leave to marinte in the refrigerator for at least 2hrs, I usually leave mine over night, the flavour is richer when its left for longer.

                        

5. Line Chicken in a baking tray and pop in a hot oven to cook.

6. Pull out chicken tray from oven intermittently to baste with the other half of reserved marinade

Voila! Chicken ready, easy right? and quite tasty and juicy! serve with a salad, chips, rice anything you fancy.

Tried it?  let me know what you did differently and how it came out.

Bon Apetit!

Food I love - Vegetable Peanut Butter Stir fry

Hi Guys, hope you are having a chilled weekend? The recipe I'm sharing today is my newest tasty discovery. I’m a natural peanut butter lover through and through, usually, I spread it on toast, use for pastries or  as a dip for vegetables and fruits. But lately I started looking out for new ways to include it in my diet, since its quite protein rich and anything that gives good protein when you are trying to eat healthy is a good thing right?

Vegetable Peanut Butter Stir fry and rice served with watermelon-cucumber blast

Well...while on the quest for other ways to incorporate peanut  butter into my diet, I can across a ton of interesting recipes using peanut butter, based on my food habit and preference I was naturally drawn to combinations of peanut butter and vegetables, and this particular recipe was at the top of my must try list.

Surprisingly, it turned out pretty tasty, had a great texture and the best part was how easy and quick it was to make!

One of the best decisions I made while testing out this recipe was adding cucumbers, who knew one could add cucumbers to stir fries? It gave this dish a light palate cleansing taste that just totally won me over, love it!

After looking at several combination of recipes, this was how I tweaked them to achieve this gorgeous dish!

These are the Ingredients you would need

Peanut Butter (I used skippy, which has a mild peanut flavour, you can use a peanut butter with more intense peanut flavour if that’s what you prefer).

Boneless skinless chicken breast

Sesame seed oil

White wine vinegar ( Red or cider vinegar would be fine as well)

Corn flour

Soy sauce

Fish sauce

Garlic

Carrot

Cucumber

Some Chicken stock if available

Green peppers

Red Bell peppers

Ground Chilli or Black pepper

1.Cut chicken breast into 1inch stripes or cubes, whatever shape you fancy really. Spice it up with some fish sauce, chilli and some sesame oil. Leave to marinate for at least 30mins.

Chicken in marinade of fish sauce, chilli and sesame oil

2. In a separate dish, put some of your peanut butter about 1tbs is fine, soy sauce and some sesame oil to loosen the paste just a bit, mix thoroughly to form a smooth paste.

Peanut Butter Paste for Chicken

3.   Heat up a pan or wok, add a bit of oil, some garlic and marinated chicken strips. Stir fry for about 2mins to achieve a cooked but tender chicken. Do not cook for too long, that would toughen your chicken. Now add your peanut paste and allow chicken coat thoroughly and set aside. The process of coating the chicken with the peanut sauce should be fast and should only be a couple of seconds in the pan as peanut butter burns fast.

Chicken In peanut sauce

4.   Scoop out the insides of the cucumber and chop up all your vegetables, and then make another peanut butter paste. This time mix together your peanut butter, with some sugar or honey, soy sauce, vinegar, some chillies and a mixture of corn starch mixed with chicken stock. Try to achieve a fairly thick consistency and again mix thoroughly to achieve a smooth paste.

5.   Heat up a clean pan, add some garlic and the carrot and cook until carrot is slightly tender. Then add the red and green pepper cook for a bout a minute and add you cucumber, fish sauce and a bit of sesame oil. Finally add your peanut paste, stir to coat all the vegetables thoroughly and set aside. This is the stage where you can add your chicken if you want it in the sauce, I chose to serve mine separately.

Vegetable Peanut Butter Stir fry and rice served with watermelon-cucumber blast

Vegetable Peanut Butter Stir fry and rice served with watermelon-cucumber blast

That’s it! easy and quick right? trust me your tongue would be dancing too, because its packed full of great flavours.

Now serve with or over rice, noodles or pasta and a great drink like mine, watch out for the recipe of how to make it, and ooh! yeah thank me later :).

Notes: A couple of adjustments I would make the next time I try this, first I would increase the quantity of my second peanut sauce by adding more peanut butter and cornstarch/ chicken stock mixture so I can have more sauce in my vegetables.

I would also like to try using chunky peanut butter or probably add some crushed peanuts to the stir fry at the end so as to get more crunch and a slightly more intense peanut flavour.

I would also try using a fuller flavoured peanut butter, skippy was all I had at home, however the taste was actually not bad.

I also think some broccoli and mushrooms would be great next time, you can never have too much vegetables.

Finally, I’ll probably skip the sugar or honey next time, because I think the taste would be just fine without it. The sugar was added to balance out the taste of the vinegar but If I use just a little vinegar then I would not be needing the sugar.

Tried it?  let me know what you did differently and how it came out.

Bon Apetit!