Jollof is the rice dish of West Africa, argued over between Nigeria and Ghana with real feeling, and the version cooked for Nigerian parties is party jollof, made in huge pots over wood. The Centenary Project, writing on Nigerian food, is plain about where its character comes from: “The hero of the party jollof rice is the smoke from the firewood during its preparation”.
Abi Olayiwola makes the same point in her recipe: the smokiness comes from firewood, used because party jollof is cooked in large quantities. Her home method gets some of it back by cooking in a plain steel pot, not non-stick, and letting the rice at the bottom catch.
That bottom layer has a name in Nigerian kitchens, bottom pot, and people fight over it. It is the same idea as the crust under a paella. Aim for a golden-brown crust, not a black one. The Food Standards Agency advises cooks to “aim for a golden yellow colour or lighter” with starchy foods because of acrylamide, so the bottom pot is a choice made for flavour, and the burnt part is not worth eating anyway.
Everything in jollof except the peppers keeps for months, and the substitutions say what the tins cannot do.
The step that matters is frying the tomato. It is not a sauce you warm; it is a base you cook down until it stops tasting of tins and the oil separates out and floats red on top. Rushing this is the most common reason jollof tastes raw and sharp.
- Have a steady fire with a good bed of embers under the flames. You want strong heat for frying, then much gentler heat for the rice, and the easy way is to be able to move the pot from one to the other.
- Heat the oil in a heavy pot over the flames. Add the dried onion and cook it for two minutes, then the garlic, ginger, curry powder, herbs, paprika and chilli for a minute more.
- Add the tomato purée and fry it, stirring, for three minutes until it darkens to brick red.
- Add both tins of tomatoes. Cook hard, stirring often, for 15 to 20 minutes, until it has reduced to a thick paste and the oil has risen to the top.
- Rinse the rice until the water runs nearly clear. Stir it into the base with the crumbled stock cubes and 700 ml of water. Taste the liquid for salt: it should taste slightly too salty, because the rice will absorb it.
- Bring it to the boil, then cover tightly. A sheet of foil under the lid helps a great deal: the rice cooks in steam, and steam that escapes is rice that stays hard. Move the pot onto the embers, away from the flames.
- Leave it for 20 minutes without lifting the lid. Then check: if there is still liquid, cover and give it five more. If it is dry but the rice is still firm, do not add water; cover again and give it time.
- For the bottom pot, once the rice is tender, pull the pot over the hottest embers for the last five to eight minutes and do not stir. You will smell the rice toasting. Take it off before that smell turns acrid.
Fluff the top and serve, with a spoon of the crust from the bottom for whoever asked first.
On one burner: the same, on a low flame for step 7, then medium for the last few minutes.
Eat it hot. Cooked rice is one of the riskier things to keep without a fridge; the rice page explains why.
Serves 4.