Nigerian Jollof Rice Recipe

Cooking jollof rice, a seasoned, tomatoey rice dish, is a ceremony of passage for quite a few West Africans. For quite a few several years, my very own jollof sport was shaky because I experienced confused its ubiquity with easiness. I had assumed it was simple to make basically simply because I had eaten it normally, at every single occasion, Sunday lunch, and almost everything in between, and so didn’t respect how vital certain recipe ways were being. I would rush by way of building the stew foundation with no developing adequate taste, pick out the completely wrong form of rice, and be undisciplined about my cooking process. Some times I’d finish up with a superior pot and other days, not. I’ve realized much considering the fact that then, and now make persistently delightful pots. My major suggestion: Sluggish-cooking the rice is one particular of the most important keys to achievement.

Pondering a superior pot of jollof rice expected small skill wasn’t the only incorrect assumption I created. I also assumed that it was Nigerian in origin, supplied that I grew up there and it was a mainstay of the table. But in 2009, when my curiosity in cooking continuously greater pots of jollof deepened, I started exploring West African food items and how they traveled the earth. It was then that I learned about the roots of this dish in the kingdom of Jolof, a historic 15th- to 18th-century point out in the Wolof-Senegambian location, on the southern edge of the Sahara considerably to the west of Nigeria. 

So how did jollof discover its way across the sub-Saharan coastline? According to James McCann in Stirring the Pot: A Record of African Delicacies, the Dyula ethnic group, famed retailers who set up trade routes during the region generations in the past, have been responsible for the dispersal of jollof south of the Sahara, getting it with them as they traveled. Currently, every single region in West Africa has a version of jollof, each individual reflecting its unique background and influences. Quite a few areas further than the African continent also have variations that discuss to how significantly it has spread, particularly by way of the transatlantic slave trade—Lowcountry purple rice and New Orleans jambalaya in the American South are both equally descended from jollof rice. 

Jollof can take a lot of various names dependent 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 men and women of Mali connect with it zaame or nsamé. In the relaxation of French-speaking West Africa—Guinea Bissau, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Niger, Benin, and Togo—it’s identified as riz au gras (“riz gras” for brief). In English-talking Sierra Leone, Liberia, Ghana, and Nigeria, it is named jollof. 

There are also countless shadings of difference from one version to the next. When Senegalese and Ghanaians go for varieties of aromatic Jasmine rice, Nigerians favor parboiled or converted versions, this kind of as Golden Sella basmati rice, which cooks extra rapidly and is less susceptible to mushiness and clumping. In Nigeria, Caribbean-design and style curry powder, dried thyme, bay leaf, ginger, and garlic are common seasoning components. Distinction that with the well known Senegalese seasoning of rof, a contemporary parsley paste mixed with other aromatics and utilized in blend with fermented seafood. A Guinean good friend of mine, in the meantime, adds clean tamarind to her stew foundation.

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

There are a amount of specifics that perform alongside one another to provide stellar jollof rice, which I would define as rice that’s stewed and seasoned to perfection, with an orange-crimson color and individual grains that are neither tough nor mush jollof should really not be creamy like risotto. To reduce this end result, I stir only once in a while to aid the absorption of the sauce devoid of developing the creamy starchiness that hefty stirring (a la risotto) creates. I also cook dinner it on small heat for the greater part of the time. When the warmth is far too higher, the pot of rice will cook erratically and be at risk of burning at the foundation.  

Some browning on the bottom layer of rice is fascinating, nonetheless. Jollof rice is usually cooked on the stovetop or in excess of firewood. Abroad, in the diaspora, a lot of West Africans have explored and mastered oven-baked solutions, even though many others have manufactured use of rice cookers and InstantPots to arrive up with even a lot more techniques. Whilst the results are comparable, stovetop and firewood versions are the least complicated route to “celebration” jollof, a version that is outlined by its smoky taste and existence of “bottom pot,” the crispy, toasty layer of rice that kinds on (as the identify makes clear) the bottom of the pot, akin to Spanish socarrat. The direct warmth from below is just what is wanted to develop that caramelized, roasty underlayer.

Jollof rice is not considered a facet, but the principal dish. It is frequently paired with beef, rooster, 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 variation of coleslaw. It may well also be accompanied by moinmoin, a steamed dish manufactured with skinned, pureed black-eyed beans wrapped in the moinmoin leaves that give it its name, or dodo—fried, ripe plantains. At least one or much more of these accompaniments is viewed as normal.