As part of my concept for the New Nigerian Cuisine, using familiar food items, I explore all possibilities for creating delicious, decadent, exciting, fun food ideas....!
I always advocate eating food in courses....., well at least first, second and third, ....because I believe that this enables us to include a wide variety of food ingredients into our meals, casting our nets wide, so to speak, when it comes to "fishing for nutrients"...!
I also believe eating different courses, increases our food eating experience, am talking about all the unique individual tastes, flavours, textures, aromas, umami...etc contributed by the different ingredients.
One of the main areas I explore the most is desserts.....because Nigerian cuisine is a little behind in this area...!
There are so many possibilities and because Nigeria is blessed with a lot of ingredients potentially good for creating desserts, the possibilities are endless really, You are only limited by your own imagination.
When I think of desserts, I think of :
Taste: the dessert should be a balanced combination of two or more of sweetness, tartness, creaminess, saltiness
Texture: it should have a good texture, smoothness, thickness, consistency and crunch
Presentation: it should be presented beautifully, exhibiting intense colours from the starting ingredients.exhibiting also some visual effects...
Serving: either chilled or warm in combination with a well matched accompaniment
Today's dish is unexpectedly delicious and has worked out to be a winning dessert! Try it
What you need
- Yellow ogi paste (you can also use white one, not the brown one though)
- Hibiscus flower (zobo) syrup (get recipe here)
- Condensed milk
- Bean flour
- Egg
- Tomato paste
- Honey
- Baking soda
What to do
- Start first by making the bean cakes as these take the longest time to make.
- Sieve some bean flour into a mixing bowl and add some milk, one egg, two spoons honey (more or less as you prefer), a pinch of baking soda, half a teaspoon of salt.
- Mix all ingredients together. Then add some tomato paste to add some colour to the bean cakes. Mix all ingredients together until you achieve a batter similar to a cake batter. Add some milk to adjust the consistency.
- There two steps to making the cakes:
- First scoop some batter into small cake pop moulds. Place in a preheated oven gas mark 4. This stage is just to get the batter to take shape. After about 10 minutes or so, remove the bean cakes from the mould. By now they should be perfect half moon shape.
- Second, transfer the half baked cakes into hot oil and fry for about 3 minutes or until golden brown.
To make the Zobo ogi,
- in pot, dissolve completely some ogi paste using fresh cold water. Then add some hot water to the dissolved ogi stirring continuously until it starts to gel. The amount of water you add will impact the thickness of the ogi, so add carefully a little at a time. You should aim for the consistency of custard.
- Now place the pot on a low heat stove and allow the ogi to cook for about 5 minutes. Then add some condensed milk and or sugar to sweeten it.
- Once cooked, carefully add a few spoons of concentrated zobo syrup to one side of the ogi in the pot. Stir the syrup into that side ensuring the it does not get to the other side which is still yellow in colour. Then tip the pot into a dish allowing both yellow and pink ogi to flow in a marbled manner.
- Serve hot with the bean cakes
Yum!
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