La Cucina Naija

Naija is a word we Nigerians guard jealously… It is about the food, the flamboyant dressing, the mannerisms, the boisterous – some say loud – interaction among complete strangers who on meeting immediately feel bonded by their “Naija-ness”. - Bilkisu Labaran

For a long time, it’s been my dream to create my own petite cucina (little restaurant). It would be an intimate space with delicious soul food, beautiful art on the walls, records playing nonstop and a little stage to welcome visiting musicians. I realise that this will take a lot of time and work but I’ve been brought up to dream big, and so to this particular vision, I am hopelessly devoted.

So, in light of spring arriving and new ventures blossoming over various parts of my life, I decided to launch the first step towards my cucina, and find out whether it’s something I could do well and really enjoy. Last weekend I turned my living room in to a pop-up pseudo restaurant and invited 8 guests to taste a 3-course West African inspired feast.

Tailoring my menu around Nigerian cuisine might have something to do with the fact that I’ve just finished re-reading Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s novel, Purple Hibiscus, and needed to satisfy a serious craving for moi-moi, egusi soup, jollof rice and all things Naija! But I also think that it’s time to put African food on the map as I find it to be wildly under-represented compared to other types of world cuisine. In Paris alone there are plenty of wonderful restaurants hidden all over the city, as I revealed in an article for Vingt Paris last year.

My preparation began on Friday evening after a trip to the Goutte d’or, a neighbourhood in the 18^th arrondissement that also goes by the name of “Little Africa.” I came home with a basketful of essentials – okra, plantains, black-eyed beans, chilli, Maggi and palm oil. While I soaked my beans (the star ingredient of my Akara starter), I got to work on my Chin-Chin Cheesecake dessert. I put a Nigerian twist on a classic lemon cheesecake recipe by making the biscuit base out of speculoos biscuits and chin-chin – a Nigerian crunchy sweet snack. It was a bit of a gamble but the spicy cinnamon in the speculoos was a perfect match for the chin-chin’s nutmeg flavours and, to balance out the sweetness, I decided to make quite a sharp cheesecake topping with very little sugar and lots of fresh lemon juice and zest. My cake chilled in the fridge overnight alongside some individual little cheesecake pots I’d made “in case of incase-ities” (Amina-ism).

Saturday morning, I woke up bright and early and head straight to the Marché d’Aligre in my neighbourhood for some fresh berries, garden herbs and a little bouquet of pink roses for my table setting. I also paid a visit to the butcher for some chicken thighs to go in the main course of Groundnut Stew, a spicy peanut-based dish for which I used my big sister’s secret recipe. While my stew was bubbling away, I made a hot pepper sauce of roasted bell peppers, tomatoes, coriander and chilli to serve with my starter. Akara are black-eyed bean fritters that are very popular from Nigeria to Sierra Leone.  I prepared a light carrot and courgette salad to add an extra splash of colour, and fried the Akara when my guests arrived so that they were warm and crispy. After the starter, I steamed some rice and garden peas and fried up the dodo (sliced plantain) to serve with the main course.

Akara with pepper salsa and a spring salad

Groundut stew & Dodo

I admit there were some timing issues with all the shallow frying before each course, so I might have to consider investing in a fryer for the next round. I also slightly underestimated my guest’s chilli pepper tolerance as I could have done with spicing up my Akara a little more. That said, it was quite an international party of diners, from Canada to Australia and America to Finland, all of whom had never before tasted West African cooking. I’m delighted to say that the food was a success, perhaps the biggest hit of the night being the cheesecake finale…

Chin-Chin cheesecake with rasberry & lime coulis

The wine selection also went down a treat. I’d visited wine store, La Dernière Goutte, in the 6^th (by the same owners of Cosi, a lovely little café I used to work at) and they suggested a Sauvignon Blanc and a Languedoc that paired up perfectly with my menu.

All in all, it was a superb evening with wonderful company and lots of laughter. And now that I’ve had a taste for it, I can’t wait to plan the next Cucina Naija!

Where?

My petite cucina – and a special thank you to princess Jenny Zeng Zeng for her lovely photos.

What’s playing today?

Just when I think I’ve narrowed down my favourite Nina Simone record, another one resurfaces and slaps me in the face ♥

“I want a little sugar in my bowl… I need a little sweetness down in my soul”

One Love, One Pot Yogurt Muffins

The greatest thing about Mondays (…granted it’s not often a long list!) is 4p.m. tea time when I put the kettle on and whip out my trusty tupperware of baked goods left over from a Sunday kitchen interlude.

Today I’m tucking into a spiced fruity muffin that’s still as spongy and moist as when I took them out of the oven yesterday afternoon. And the secret ingredient for keeping all that juicy moisture locked in?…a little pot of yogurt.

This yogurt cake recipe is a fun-time classic, especially when baking with little bambini, because the yogurt pot doubles up as your measuring tool meaning no scales and no fuss! I also love it because once you’ve got your essential ingredients down (eggs, flour, oil, sugar and yogurt) it’s almost a blank canvas that you can then dress up as you like. I indulged in a whole heap of extra goodies, from grated apple and carrot to raisins and crushed walnuts. You can also shape your cake however you want: a loaf tin, a ridged bundt pan or a round dish. I opted for little cupcake-sized muffins because I was feeling sassy.

As for your choice of yoghurt, you can pretty much use any flavour. Personally I like to keep it plain and natural, and I’m quite partial to the yaourt brassé you find in French supermarkets, because it has the thick creamy consistency of Greek yoghurt.

The recipe is “ABC, easy as 123” meaning that to 1 pot of yogurt, you add 1 pot of oil, 2 pots of sugar and 3 pots of flour. Simple. Here’s what else you’ll need, including my optional* ingredients which you can leave out or substitute as you wish:

1 x 125g pot of yogurt
2 eggs
1 pot of sunflower oil
2 pots of caster sugar
3 pots of plain flour
1 heaped teaspoon of baking powder
1 teaspoon of vanilla syrup
Ground cinnamon
Grated nutmeg
Lemon zest
*½ grated apple
*½ grated carrot
*2 mashed overripe bananas
*Raisins
*Walnuts and almond flakes
*A handful of dark chocolate chips… just because they were staring at me from the pantry!

First preheat the oven at 180°C, then pour the oil over the bananas, sprinkle over a teaspoon of cinnamon and nutmeg, and set aside. In a separate bowl mix the yogurt and sugar before adding the eggs one at a time. Next stir in the oil & bananas and vanilla. Then sift in your flour and baking powder, and gently fold the mixture together. Add the lemon zest along with all of your extra treats, et voilà!

I then spooned the mixture into my colourful silicon cupcake cases (greatest Christmas present!) and popped them into the oven. As there was already so much going on in the cake mixture, I wanted to avoid a sugary icing so I thought I’d try dressing them up with a few pinches of rolled oats and thin slices of fresh kiwi.

When they came out around 15-20 minutes later they were soft, golden and – thanks to the oil and yogurt combo – deliciously succulent!

Where?

My petite cucina

What’s playing today?

Be Good by jazz man Gregory Porter – this man’s voice sounds like the taste of an Irish coffee. The video is so beautifully shot, you can’t help but smile.

Friday Food for Thought: Music as “the quickening Art”

Last night I watched a wonderful 6 minute video. I thought about it as I feel asleep, and woke up this morning with a scene playing in my mind. I’m sure I’m not alone in this; the video has had over 3 million hits on YouTube in just a few days.

Alive Inside is a documentary that explores the therapeutic effects of music on the elderly. The star of this particular clip is 92-year-old Henry. Resident at a nursing home for 10 years, he suffers from the degenerative disease Dementia. When he’s given a set of headphones plugged into an iPod full of tracks from his youth, Henry undergoes a transformation that is to be seen rather than told…

Never before has the idea of someone’s eyes ‘lighting up’ been so perfectly illustrated. Neurologist, Dr Oliver Sacks, explaines that through the power of music Henry has “remembered who he is… for a while.” Sacks provides a systematic narrative with as much verve and exubrance as the newly rediscovered Nonagenarian, himself.

When the music is paused, Henry is asked to describe how it makes him feel; he simply gushes, “I feel a band of Love, of dreams!” This is, for me, the most touching sentiment of the scene. It resonates the idea that love, romance and music are so inextricably interlaced – an idea that also brings to mind my favourite quote and one of the inspirations behind my blog: “If music be the food of love, play on” – the opening line from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night.

Alive Inside by Michael Rossato-Bennett will be screened on April 18th, and I can’t wait for it to reach Parisian shores so that I can witness other stories as touching as Henry’s.

“for people who are out of it, Music will bring them back into it”.

Amen to that, Dr Sacks!

What’s playing today?

In honour of Henry, here’s his “number one guy”, Cab Calloway with Minnie the Moocher.

Banutty Banoffee

Inviting five of my favourite Parisian princesses to dinner last night was the perfect excuse to spend Easter Monday in my kitchen with the wireless on. I kicked off with MJ’s Dangerous record to get the creative juices flowing, and ended on a doubly sweet note with Bettye Swann serenading as I put the finishing touches to dessert. It was blissful.

For the sake of minimal faffing in the kitchen when the girls arrived, I decided that the main course would be something that I could prepare early and pop into the oven before serving. I went with a beef & aubergine lasagne with lashings of red wine, fresh basil and pecorino cheese served with homemade garlic bread and an avocado and roquette salad.

As for pudding, I took the classic British Banoffee Pie and gave it a nutty twist. Banoffee is the perfect combination of naughtiness – the biscuity base of a cheese cake, a sticky layer of toffee and ripe bananas all topped with Trifle-inspired whipped cream. However, for me there’s just one missing ingredient that could bring all 4 flavours together and add another dimension of texture, and so I decided to throw some nuts into the mix!

I didn’t want to make the pie any sweeter than it already is so I kept things simple by adding some toasted almond flakes to the oat biscuit base, and then a few lightly salted crushed hazelnuts to the caramel layer – the latter is an ode to caramel au beurre salé, the classic French blend of sweet and salty that works sublimely as a sweet crêpe topping (there’s a great recipe for this by Awfully French). I fell in love with this combination when I tasted a caramel & fleur de sel macaron glacé (an ice cream macaron, I kid you not!) at the artisan icecream parlour, La Martinière, on the Ile de Ré. And I recently rekindled a craving for this flavour when I read Sweet Tooth‘s recipe for salted caramel shortbread.

Macarons glacés at La Martinière, Ile de Ré.

I used this Aldo Zilli recipe as an outline (minus the double chocolate sauce which I thought might be a tad too much), and substituted a few ingredients to make my own recipe:

For the pie

• 75g oat biscuits + 75g Speculoos biscuits for that spicy cinnamon kick
• 75g melted unsalted butter
• 2 sliced ripe bananas
• a handful of crushed hazelnuts mixed with a little sea salt
• a handful of almond flakes
• 200ml double cream for whipping

And for the -noffee

• 100g unsalted butter
• 100g caster sugar
• 400g can of condensed milk

The first thing to make was the base, for which I blitzed up all the biscuits into crumbs in a food processor (you can also put them in a freezer bag and bash them into submission with a rolling pin!). I poured over the melted butter and mixed this together before adding the almond flakes. Then I pressed the mixture into an even layer on the base of a loose bottom cake tin and left it to set in the fridge for around 45 minutes. *WARNING: it might be an idea to first line the tin with some parchment paper – you’ll see why later!*

Next came my favourite part – homemade caramel. On a very low heat I melted the butter and sugar until the sugar had completely dissolved. Then I added a retro-looking red tin of Carnation condensed milk and slowly brought this to the boil, stirring nonstop to make sure it didn’t burn. After 5 minutes or so, it had thickened to a soft caramel consistency, releasing a sweet toffee aroma. I took it off the heat and when it had cooled, I spread the toffee over the biscuit base before sprinkling over the crushed salted hazelnuts and then arranging the banana slices over the top.

This went back in the fridge covered with cling film until an hour before my guests arrived, when I whipped the double cream to soft peaks and spread it over the nutty caramel and banana layer. I finished off with a few shavings of dark chocolate and some festive Easter balls.

Now when it came to serving my pie, the base and caramel had set so well that lifting a neat slice was close to impossible (hence the parchment paper suggestion!). What followed was a deliciously messy affair… I placed the Banoffee at the centre of the table and 6 spoons took to battle until the entire dish had been devoured.

Next time I think I’ll make neat individual little pies, perhaps in glass ramekins. But on this particular occasion, the sinful messiness of it all was the perfect ending to our mischievous ladies night. And most importantly, the nutty twist was a sure-fire hit!

Where?

My petite cucina

What’s playing today?

A few weeks back, a very special friend told me to check out AlunaGeorge, a London act fusing R&B with electronic beats. The duo is singer Aluna Francis and producer George Reid, and their track You Know You Like It almost transports me back to 1996 for Timberland’s production on the late Aaliyah’s One In A Million record.

To deviate from the R&B vein, Aluna’s alluring vocals bring to mind Martina Topley Bird and Little Dragon‘s Yukimi (two of my favourites). And it’s easy to see why last month they were featured on NME‘s 10 Tracks You Have To Hear This Week.

Even after hurling all these comparisons at them, I still think that AlunaGeorge are creating something quite fresh, sultry even. What do you think?

The secret’s out…

I realise that this could upset some residents of the 20th arrondisement but I’ve never been good at keeping foodie secrets. Saturday night I dined at Cyclo, a tiny Vietnamese restaurant on rue de Belleville, and soon discovered why it’s one of the neighbourhood’s best kept secrets. The place was full to the brim, with most of the patrons on a first-name basis with the owner – a charmingly flamboyant Vietnamese native who takes the utmost pride in each dish that comes out of his kitchen.

There was a 50 minute wait for a table, so we left our names and trotted down the hill for un p’tit verre and some live folk music at Culture Rapide. By 10 p.m. we were soothing our grumbling bellies with 2 entrées of gỏi cuốn rice paper rolls filled with rice noodles, prawns and slices of pork, and deep fried pork nem rolls wrapped in fresh mint and lettuce leaves – each had its own bowl of sweet vinegary dipping sauce with grated carrots.

Next came a round of bún bò and phở bò. The first is a cold noodle salad topped with succulent beef, peanuts, nems and fresh coriander. It’s a close call but I think this is slightly better than the bò bún at Hanoi in the 11th. The second is a soup dish of rice noodles and thin slices of raw flank steak that cook in the steaming hot shrimp-paste-chilli-lemongrass-flavoured broth. It’s served with a wedge of lime, bean sprouts, fresh onion and a little pot of thick Hoisin sauce.

Once our ransacked bowls had been cleared away, there was talk of the D-word…dessert! I tried to graciously bow out of this round, until Mr Cyclo passed by with a tantalising tower of crispy coconut crêpes and ice cream. He paused to waft it under our noses, knowing full well that the slightest taunt would throw me over the edge, and of course I fell hook, line and sinker. We ordered the Délice de Banane, and out came a flat slice of steamed banana cake with a brown sugar crust. Just as we were about to tuck in, our man cried “halt” and began spooning over the pool of sweet coconut milk it was swimming in. He explained that this would enhance the flavour and was, of course, spot on. I could have eaten the entire cake tin just drenched in the stuff.

Where?
Cyclo – 78, rue de Belleville 75020 Paris * Métro: Pyrenées

How much?
Entrées & Desserts: €5-6
Mains: €7.50-10.00

What’s playing today?
I recently read a Life + Times of Scott post about Frank Ocean and loved two things, i) redefiniing the term ‘discovering music’ and ii) defending the illustrious love song a.k.a. “sappy singing”.
This is Whip Appeal by Mr Ocean

La Petite Cuisine on La Petite Cucina

Food bloggers across the globe must be green with envy at the success of Croyden girl turned TV star and published cookbook author, Rachel Khoo. I, however, am simply inspired by her story, in most part because there are a lot of elements of it that I can identify with. Like Miss Khoo, I also packed up and left London for Paris where I fell in love, not with a French prince charmant but with Sunday markets full of seasonal treats, vibrant quartiers and freshly baked figue loaves from my favourite boulangerie. While I was building myself a creative outlet through my blog La Petite Cucina, Rachel Khoo was busy turning her own kitchen into an underground restaurant called La Petite Cuisine à Paris. I am by no means trying to draw any comparisons – Rachel Khoo is a Cordon Bleu qualified patisserie wizz with an escalating list of impressive achievements for one – but it’s exciting to see that some fairytales can come true.

image from BBC iPlayer

I’d first heard about Rachel when friends back in London were sending me links to the trailer for her new BBC Two show: The Little Paris Kitchen:Cooking with Rachel Khoo. And now she’s everywhere you look, including the Betty Bee blog, who posted an interview with Miss Khoo this morning that has set a very positive start to my week. It’s great to see that if you want something enough, add a pinch of ingenuity, a dollop of hard graft and you’re onto a winning recipe.

What’s playing today?

Also brightening up my Monday morning is Mr Arthur Conley with Sweet Soul Music.

Market Treats #6: Tutti Fruity

There’s nothing better than slicing through the thick hass peel of an avocado to find that perfectly ripe emerald velvety flesh, just begging to be spread onto a slice of sourdough! Today it felt like everything in the market was even more juicy and colourful than usual. So I duly filled my basket and later treated my housemate to an afternoon snack of fluffy cinnamon spiced pancakes topped with a tutti fruity salad and a drizzle of honey.

 

What’s playing today?

This was my favourite track on Frank, and one of the first clips I ever saw of Amy. I can’t believe it was almost a decade ago! I still loved the beehive and choca eyeliner, but there’s something so pure about her here that it kind of mirrors the effortlessness of her vocal.