Nigerian Suya kebabs with hibiscus ice & watermelon

OK, here we  go. Month 2 of our Spicery world tour. This time round we’re in Nigeria with beef kebabs and a startlingly purple ice dessert. Check out some of the spice blends:

As before, I started off by prepping the dessert, as it required some time in the freezer. It was surprisingly easy: a water, sugar and ginger combo melted on the hob, then strained over the top of a ton of hibiscus and left for five minutes. This was then strained again into a super-chilled, broad dish, now with all the spices discarded, and stuffed into the freezer.

Doesn’t get much more deep purple than that.

Onto the main course, which was simpler than last month’s hand-made Kathi rolls. First up there was a pepper sauce, combining a load of veg with peppery spices (paprika, habanero, onion etc). This was fried up with some tomato and reduced down to a thick, almost paste-like sauce ready for serving.

Meanwhile roasted peanuts were ground up with the Suya blend (white pepper, bay, thyma, onion) while the beef strips were marinated in a similar blend that also included Szechuan peppers for added spice. Here’s the Suya spices being blended with the peanuts:

Man, culinary blogging doesn’t get better than that.

The beef was threaded onto skewers ready for grilling, while the rice turned out to be a twist on jambalaya and entirely delicious. Here’s the veg being prepped just before the basmati was added:

The basmati was added to this along with some stock and jollof spices (turmeric, coriander, allspice, cumin, thyme, bay, paprika, garlic, ginger, habanero, red bell pepper) and left to steam up with the lid on.

Meanwhile cottage cheese was combined with Wara spices and chilli oil, and a simple lemony salad was tossed together. Here’s the kebabs with the Wara and extra Suya mix for scattering on the plate:

It was all very manageable, with nothing being overly complex, but added up to an intense meal of perfectly combined textures and flavours.

All that remained was to grab the frozen ice, break it up with a fork and serve alongside watermelon in a pre-chilled bowl.

I’ve only cooked two months of Spicery recipes but they’ve both been massive successes, challenging both technically (especially the flatbreads from last month) and in terms of flavours. I’d never have ended up combining cottage cheese, rice, vegetables and beef in this way without prompting.

Next month will be interesting, as it involves Tunisian Brik and chermoula. I’m not the world’s biggest fan of tuna, so we’ll see how I get on.

Huge thanks again to all the folk at FXHOME for gifting me with this subscription. My mouth thanks you.