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Jollof Beans

Jollof Beans applies the beloved Jollof Rice cooking principle — cooking a starch directly in a richly seasoned tomato and pepper base rather than serving it separately alongside stew — to beans. The result is a deeply flavoured bean dish where every bean has been cooked in and saturated by the bold tomato, pepper and spice base, achieving an intensity of flavour that separate bean and stew preparation cannot replicate.

Jollof Beans, Nigerian cooking

Ingredients

  • 2 big cups of honey beans or brown beans, soaked overnight
  • 4 big ripe tomatoes, blended
  • 2 Tatashe (red bell peppers), blended
  • 3 Atarodo (hot chilli peppers), blended
  • 1 big onion — half blended with peppers, half sliced
  • 2 cooking spoons of palm oil
  • 3 big handfuls of ground dried crayfish
  • 3 seasoning cubes (Knorr), crushed
  • Salt to taste
  • Water as needed

Method

  1. 01

    Pre-cooking the Beans. Drain soaked beans. Boil in fresh water for 35 to 40 minutes until half-cooked but still firm. Drain. Reserve the cooking liquid.

  2. 02

    Frying the Jollof Base. Heat palm oil in a wide, deep pot. Add sliced onion and fry 2 minutes. Add blended tomatoes, Tatashe, Atarodo and onion. Fry vigorously for 20 minutes until deeply cooked and oil floats on top.

  3. 03

    Adding the Beans to the Base. Add the half-cooked beans directly into the fried pepper base. Add ground crayfish, seasoning cubes and salt. Pour in enough of the reserved bean cooking liquid to just cover the beans. Stir well.

  4. 04

    Cooking Jollof Style. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low. Cover tightly with foil and a lid. Cook for 30 to 40 minutes until the beans are fully cooked and have absorbed all the pepper sauce. Check every 10 minutes and add a little water if the beans are drying out before becoming tender. The finished Jollof Beans should be thick, each bean stained red-orange from the pepper sauce, and deeply seasoned throughout. Taste and adjust.

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