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Recipes with dried chilli powder

5 recipes that use dried chilli powder, with photos, step-by-step instructions and cook times. The quickest, Tuo zaafi with ayoyo soup, takes 40 minutes. It is most often cooked with onion, stock cube and cloves.

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Owo soup with fish

Owo looks almost like custard: palm oil is whisked with a little potash water until it turns from red to a creamy yellow, then thickened with cassava starch and seasoned with crayfish and pepper. Urhobo and Isoko homes in Delta State serve it with boiled unripe plantain or yam, which you dip and scoop rather than swallow, and it is a favourite on market days because it is quick once the fish is ready. Fresh or smoked fish both work; many cooks use both. Too much potash makes the soup soapy and bitter, so add the strained potash water little by little and stop as soon as the colour changes. The usual mistake is pouring in the potash too fast, which splits the palm oil instead of turning it smooth and yellow. Chef's tip: mix the starch with cold water first, then pour it into the pot in a thin stream while stirring, or it will set in lumps.

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Kilishi

Long-distance travellers in the Hausa north have carried kilishi for generations: beef sliced so thin you can see light through it, coated in a fiery paste of ground roasted groundnuts, ginger, onion and chilli, dried, then flashed over a fire until it crackles. It is sold in Kano and Sokoto markets in stacked sheets and eaten as a snack or with a cold drink. Traditionally it is sun-dried raw; this home version heats the meat to 71 °C in the oven before drying and is stored in the fridge, which makes it safer. Sun-dried, uncooked kilishi is not for pregnant women, young children or anyone with a weakened immune system. Chef's tip: freeze the beef for an hour before slicing; firm meat is the only way to get sheets 3 mm thin at home.

240 minNigerianMeatGluten freeSpicy
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Balangu

At balangu spots around Kano and the northern cities, the meat is cooked on flat stones heated by fire underneath, so it sears in its own fat rather than over flames. Mutton is the classic, with bone and a little fat left on; beef works too. It comes off crusty and smoky, then is tossed with yaji, the northern peanut-chilli spice, and served on paper with raw onion, tomato and cabbage, eaten with the fingers in the evening. A heavy cast-iron pan or griddle gives the same effect at home. Marinate in the fridge, not on the counter, and cook the pieces until no pink remains and they reach 71 °C. Chef's tip: get the iron smoking hot before the meat goes on and do not crowd it; overcrowding is the classic mistake that leaves the meat grey and stewed.

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Tuo zaafi with ayoyo soup

In Tamale and across northern Ghana, TZ is the evening meal: a soft, smooth swallow of maize (sometimes millet) that wobbles in the bowl and is eaten with ayoyo, a bright green, slippery jute-leaf soup flavoured with dawadawa. The pair is often served with a meat or fish stew alongside; this version is fully vegan, with the ayoyo seasoned well enough to stand alone. Frozen jute leaves, sold as ewedu or molokhia, are a good substitute, and a teaspoon of miso can stand in for dawadawa. Chef's tip: make a thin porridge with part of the maize meal first and then thicken it; the usual mistake is adding all the meal at once, which makes a lumpy, stiff TZ.

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Wasawasa

Yam is dried and milled in the Upper West Region around Wa, and wasawasa turns that dark, earthy powder into a quick staple: moistened, rubbed into small granules, steamed, then tossed with oil, ground pepper, raw onion and salt. The result is brown, chewy and savoury, rather like a rustic couscous, eaten for lunch or supper, often with a fresh tomato and pepper relish and sometimes fish. Shea butter is the traditional fat; groundnut oil is easier to find. Chef's tip: add the water slowly and stop when the powder feels like damp sand; the common mistake is making it too wet, which steams into a single solid lump.

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Goes well with dried chilli powder