We rejoice the world’s finest consolation meals by asking cooks and meals writers from various backgrounds to speak in regards to the dishes they love.
Right here, Maria Bradford, a meals author from Sierra Leone, shares how the meals of her youth shapes her cooking in the present day, and the sweet-savoury snack that her grandmother would make for her.
See Maria’s res kanyah recipe.
Maria’s favorite dish
As a toddler in Sierra Leone, Mara Bradford would escape her mum’s components and “force-feed buddies”. She explains that, “I have been cooking since I can bear in mind. It is all the time been a love of mine.”
It was not till 2017, nonetheless, that this ardour – beforehand expressed in cooking for household weddings or for occasions at her husband’s firm – grew to become a occupation. After finishing an expert cookery course at Leiths, Maria, now 41, left her work in accountancy and launched herself into non-public catering, cookery courses and promoting her personal drinks and chilli sauces, specializing in popularising meals from Sierra Leone, “a tiny nation of huge flavours”.
Quickly, followers on social media had been tagging Maria’s cooking, a mixture of conventional and trendy ‘Afro-fusion’ dishes, as #shwenshwen (that means ‘fancy’ within the Krio language). Maria rebranded her Kent-based enterprise and Shwen Shwen’s mission to advertise the “artistic versatility” of African components has flown. Subsequent yr, Quadrille will publish Maria’s debut cookbook, Candy Salone, a extremely private celebration, says Maria, of the “tradition and other people of this lovely nation. That’s the Sierra Leone I would like individuals to see.”
“I had a extremely glad childhood rising up in Sierra Leone’s capital, Freetown. My mum, a main college trainer, has 4 kids, and all of us had duties at dwelling,” Maria explains.
“From 9 years previous, I might prepare dinner rice. It’s a Sierra Leonean staple. We’ve a saying: ‘if we haven’t eaten rice, we haven’t eaten’. After college, I’d prepare dinner the rice and warmth the sauces mum had made.
“I used to be taught to prepare dinner by my mum, aunties and grandmother. As an African baby, you assist in the kitchen. It doesn’t matter how younger you’re, you’ve gotten a job. However I used to be inquisitive, too. I wouldn’t cease asking questions on components, tales behind dishes, the price of issues. I used to be very pleased with taking cost of the day cooking.
“I additionally needed to style every little thing. In Sierra Leone, we now have road meals, however – and I’ve by no means understood the logic of this – consuming on the road is taken into account impolite. I used to be continuously in hassle with aunties, uncles or neighbours who’d noticed me consuming road meals. I’d save my college bus cash, stroll dwelling and purchase inexperienced banana morkor fritters (my goodness, I liked them!), ice lollies made with hibiscus or tombe [tamarind] and res kanyah.
“Res kanyah is a sweet-savoury delicacy, a easy mixture of rice flour, sugar and peanut butter. It’s a traybake, however with out the baking. My grandmother would carry us res kanyah when she visited from Bo within the south or, usually strolling dwelling, I’d purchase it on the road to snack on.
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“I liked buying at our native market. There was an actual sense of household and neighborhood there. Mum knew everybody: who sells the most effective palm oil, recent fish or peanut butter, freshly floor in a machine. That’s how we ate. For those who needed chopped tomatoes, you acquire recent tomatoes and chopped them.
“At dwelling, we ate extra fish than something. If we ate hen, it was chickens we reared. We had a vegetable patch and neighbours would have mango and banana timber, or grew candy potato and cassava. We’d eat the candy potato leaves, then the basis because it comes by as candy potato, and feed the peelings to our animals. There was no waste and numerous creativity.
“In Sierra Leone, once we say stew, we imply it’s a slow-cooked caramelised onion base with tomatoes and spices, and no liquid, only a little bit of oil. Our soups use extra liquid and, once we say sauces or plasas [similar in consistency to spinach curry], we’re speaking about leafy greens like candy potato and cassava leaves or crain crain [jute leaves]. Plasas are the actually conventional Sierra Leonean dishes, eaten with rice or fufu [cassava dumplings].
“In Sierra Leone, life revolves round meals. All our events, any occasion or celebration, entails meals, and whenever you invite somebody to your home, you feed them till they will’t transfer. Particularly on the weekend, all people got here collectively at mealtimes. Meals was served on a central platter and, utilizing our palms, we’d eat collectively. I can’t let you know how satisfying that’s. Cooking collectively, consuming collectively – it builds relationships.”
5 key Sierra Leone components
Palm oil
“Purple, unrefined palm oil from West Africa. It’s finished in small batches and has a scrumptious flavour that may’t be replicated. It’s used to fry, flavour or end dishes, as you may use good olive oil.” (Test the label to make sure you’re utilizing a sustainable palm oil.)
Ogiri
“Boiled, fermented, salted and smoked sesame seeds. Ogiri intensifies savoury flavours and is used as a base seasoning in quite a lot of conventional dishes. For instance, if cooking candy potato leaves, it goes within the pot first with the meat, palm oil and inventory, so the ogiri cooks because the meat softens – that’s the bottom sauce.”
Okra
“From the leaves to the ‘girl finger’, we eat it in some ways. I prefer it finely sliced in stews.”
Plantain
“I really like plantain in all types: from fried within the morning on a sandwich with onion, garlic and smoked fish sauce (like consuming a chip butty!), to creating ice cream with actually ripe, darkish, candy plantains – those they’re virtually giving freely.”
Hibiscus
“In Sierra Leone, purple hibiscus is used to present ice lollies and social gathering drinks a cranberry-like tartness. I additionally use it to make desserts and treatment fish. It’s an incredible ingredient.”
