Stew my way

This is not for anyone who wants to be dogmatic about a pot of stew. The idea of Nigerian stew already has religious connotations. If I walked into a Nigerian home in the middle of the afternoon, the likelihood is, the stew pot will be cooling on the hob with the lid just slightly askew.

The oil will be tantalizingly settled on top, the cooked peppers at the bottom, the pieces of meat distressing the landscape. It is interesting that if I say stew to a Nigerian, he immediately understands what I mean, but a foreigner might ask what kind of stew. It is an extraneous question.

Our stew is that omnipresent combination of capsicums, onions, hot peppers, tomatoes, oil and meat that we deem fit to serve with almost everything we eat. It is a safety net for hunger and a symbol of hospitality. The question "Is there stew?" is inspiration for the emergence of a loaf of bread, a plate of fried plantains, a bowl of plainly cooked Okra with Gari, or steamed rice.

If there is stew then there is food; and the conclusion is so clean that one can switch one's brain away from the necessity of food preparation to other things. This is no insignificant detail in cultures where people drop round without invitation and expect to be fed.

A pot of stew can be a key diplomatic tool. Stew can become a religion exactly because it is cooked every day. No one can argue with the connections between nostalgia and appetite, the overriding appeal of stew-the-way-my-mother-cooks-it; the comfort of eating what we are used to eating, and what we have eaten for forty years.

But here I am proposing that the Nigerian institution of stew be disbanded temporarily or permanently for the sake of trying something new and for the sake of not lying down on one's deathbead and wishing that one had done something...just a little something...risqué with one's food.

Ripe firm tomatoes; large muscular red capsicum peppers (no black rot in sight); one long leek; half a purple onion; one large clove of garlic and a variety of green, yellow and red hot peppers from as wide a range of aroma and heat as possible or as one desires...

Sometimes I use green sweet peppers...These are some of the possible ingredients. All except the tomatoes are washed and deseeded. The tomatoes are washed and kept whole.

Special care is taken when washing the leek because the soil in which it is grown rides all the way up the skins of the leek. What I do is top the leek and make a long incision all the way down one side of it. This allows me to open up the skins and wash under the tap without really breaking the leek up. One only uses the green ends of the leek if they are really green without any spots of yellow.

The ingredients for the stew are arranged in a large roasting dish, not on top of each other, but as much as possible in their own space. A generous drizzle of olive oil or plain vegetable oil if you prefer, and a sprinkling of rock sea salt goes over everything, and...my secret weapon; a light rain of dark sesame oil.

The dish goes in the oven for about an hour at moderate heat. The important things to note are the following: As tempted as you might be to add water to the roasting dish, please don't. Trust me, you won't need it. It is important to allow your ingredients to roast in their own juices. Leaving the dish open allows for some charring. Charring is good, burning bad, and most people can smell the difference.

The charring adds flavour so allow the peppers to do a good stretch on one side before turning everything over. You might want to cover the dish with a piece of foil after you have moved things around so that the liquid from the peppers and tomatoes don't dry up.

Bring the dish out of the oven when the tomatoes and peppers have collapsed, the leek wilted, the onion skins translucent and everything a little charred. If you've done this right, you should have some juices at the bottom of your roasting dish. Allow to cool. Blend everything up with more sesame oil. Pour into a pot and place on the hob. Don't be alarmed if your stew is more terracotta than red, and if it is very thick. Just add as much water and oil as needed to get the desired consistency.

Don't be heavy handed with the oil or with the salt and seasoning because you will find that you don't need a great deal of oil, and you have a lot of flavour already, even without stock cubes. You will find you also have a beautifully smooth consistency; closer to oyinbo soup than stew actually. Add some well-seasoned boiled goat meat or the meat of a local chicken. Simmer the blended stew on the hob for another 10 - 20 minutes, stirring regularly. Watch your clothes, this stew splatters like anything. The stew is done.

The leek is important: An aunt once told me that the less onions one uses in stews, the more balanced the taste. Over the years I have come to agree with her, but I like my onions, so the best compromise is a combination of the two. The leek is in the onion family but a lot more subtle than the onion and a lot more agreeable when combined with other vegetables.

It is not unusual to cook a pot of stew endlessly and still have the taste of the tomatoes screaming at one, totally off key, tangy and sharp...the same for the large capsicums (tatase) which can sometimes be bitter when cooked in a pot, but rarely ever when pre-roasted in an oven.

Most people's solution to the problem is to fry everything up to an inch of its life in lots of oil. It might be tasty at the end of the frying, but one might as well be feeding on a cardiac arrest. There is also something absolutely divine about oven charred peppers; a uniqueness to the taste that brings to mind the beautiful smokiness of food cooked in clay pots over open fires. The dark sesame oil helps this illusion along wonderfully!

One day, I'm going to go one step further and simmer my blended stew in one of those "Isasun" (clay pots) that are so rare to come by these days in our urban parts. An oven roasted clove of garlic by the way is unimaginably subdued in taste so no need to fear it.

The conclusion: if we are ridding ourselves of dogma, then this piece is not really presenting a recipe on stew as much as an invitation to cook it in your own way. Bon chance!