My cousin who we fondly call Aunty Bukky is going to scream when she sees this. You know why? She cooked this on Christmas day last year and I told her I was going to put it up on the blog. I truly can’t believe I am just posting this. I remember posting part of the procedure to making this on Facebook on Christmas day. It was trending among the meats, chicken, vegetable soups, turkey and all that jazz. You may be wondering why I dug this out almost 6 months after, well *cough* *cough*, the Apple head that I am has succumbed to the technological genius (okay, okay, marketing played a part) of Retina display and I want that baby so bad. It doesn’t help that my darling Macbook has lasted 3 years. 3 years people. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever owned a personal computer that has lasted that long and IS still working. The garri I drank to save up for it, and friends telling me it was a waste of money. 3 years after it is still working and all of them have changed laptops at least twice. In your face guys. Looool. A little rough around the edges, slow in some bits, which a quick restart will fix, but the fact that it is still functioning at near optimum capacity 2 months shy of 3 years, is amazing. I will never forget my first Macbook Pro. All hail the vision of Steve Jobs.
With a new gadget baby coming into the household, before I hand this one over to some lucky bidder on eBay, I have to go through the tedious job of sorting out my files. I have been doing this for weeks now, clearing out the old, deciding what to trash and what to keep. I sure have tons of photos that I never want to set my eyes on again, lol. Serious errors in judgement. Get your mind out of the gutter, no dirty stuff. Looool. Just memories I would rather trash and put a finality to. Looking through my photos of food has revealed an incredible growth in my food photography skills. I am not even anywhere near where I want to be. I still judge my own photos and give them a 6, on days when I have my judgy hat on, I give myself a 5. I will keep some terrible shots to remind myself of where I started though, that’s a given. Whilst looking through my files, I came across these pictures and thought oooooh, I have to post that on the blog. It is a very handy recipe, and a great way to use leftovers or to quickly whip up some sauce to serve with white rice or fried rice.
Aunty Bukky serves Jollof rice with stewed meat, but her fried rice, she is quite particular that no stew goes anywhere near it. I don’t blame her, her fried rice and my mother’s fried rice would make you willingly chop veggies for days without complaining. My mum’s fried rice recipe isn’t designed for bulk cooking. Aunty Bukky’s recipe on the other hand though, features moderations here and there which totally and I mean totally works for bulk cooking. She caters on the side, so I am not allowed to reveal her recipe. I am going to bribe her to let me include it in the cookbook though, that way she can at least get paid for her efforts. Lol. We have ranges of Aunt Bessie’s food products, well, this is Aunt Bukky’s Beef and Vegetable Fiesta.
You will need
Onions
Tatashe – red bell pepper
Green bell pepper – green pepper
Ata rodo – scotch bonnet/habanero pepper
Fried or Grilled meats – you can throw in chicken or lamb if you wish
Other Fresh vegetables – such as carrots, cabbage, green onions
Vegetable Oil
Meat Stock
Garlic
Ginger
Dry pepper – cayenne pepper
How To
1. Slice all the veg that you need thinly. In this bowl I have tatashe, green pepper, yellow pepper, onions and spring onions. we added carrots at some point, but I had taken this picture with my phone
2. Fry or grill your beef and assorted meat. You can also throw in chicken if you have
3. Blend garlic and ginger to a smooth paste
4. Heat up vegetable oil in a pot, pour in the garlic and ginger paste and let it fry till it reduces
5. Add the chopped and sliced veggies and sweat them down
in a few minutes, you should have this, and you would also notice that the volume of liquid in the pot has increased, because the water content of the veggies has leached out.
6. Add the meats and beef stock and dry pepper to the pot, stir and reduce the heat to let it simmer till most of the beef stock has been absorbed and the meats have softened and plumped up. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: As it simmers, it would start absorbing all the flavours of the garlic, ginger and vegetables. The aroma alone is amazing. You may choose to add dried spices like curry or thyme, but I would say no. Garlic, ginger, onions and the fresh taste of the peppers is just what you need. This dish reminds me of Oriental cooking. Simple, clean flavours. No drama. If you want more fluid sauce, dilute with water, or preferably beef stock. If you wish, you can quickly convert this to a Curry by mixing 1 – 2 tablespoons of flour with water, and adding it to the pot on low heat. Stir and give it a few minutes for the flour to cook with the rest of the ingredients and re-season if necessary. I have a recipe for Chicken Curry. Click HERE.
Serve with fried rice or plain boiled rice
This is a beautiful dish to make with leftover fried rice ingredients, or if you are close to the end of your weekly or monthly shop and you have leftover bits of veggies, lying around in the fridge or on your kitchen cart.
Enjoy!!!!
Hmm mm! Salivating already! Won’t be bad to try it tonight.
Great Benedette. Please let me know how it goes
Did u add tomatoes by any chance cos it looks red
No Chinelo. The redness was from the tatashe (red bell pepper)
Hi Dooney…nice pictures..makes me want to eat the pictures right off the screen
Aaaaaaaw, thanks Seun
But Dooney, this looks stewy..or am I getting something wrong here? In the 7th picture, it looked like vegetables and beef but in the 8th picture, it’s suddenly red and stewy..what did I miss pls
Hi Seun, the redness comes from the tatashe. no tomatoes was used in cooking this
Please I tried this now and it’s didn’t turn out fine, can I know the quantity of your ginger and garlic because mine was way too much and it was like a veggie pudding. Please is it a must I blend the garlic and ginger can’t I get the ready made once. Thanks
Hi Sola, you would have to explain to me what the ready made one looks like, before I can say if you should use it or not. Another thing is, to make this dish, you must blend garlic and ginger to your tolerance level, otherwise, as you wrote, it would be too much
Dooneykitchen, what I actually mean by ready made garlic and ginger was actually the ones I got from an African stores which was powdered, I mean blend into powdered and packed. These were the ones I used.
Oooooh, it should work, but dissolve in water first.
Made this yesterday, oh my!!
You are right about the scent of the frying ginger-garlic mix…
The outcome was B E A U T I F U L!
Many thanks!
Yaaaaaaay Bibi, pleased to here. I will pass on your message to Aunty Bukky. Thanks
What’s the quantity of garlic and ginger? From the photo, it looks quite much or is it because of the volume of water you used to blend them?
Hi Prisca, the quantity will depend on two things, the quantity of meat that you have, plus your tolerance level for garlic and ginger. Aunty bukky likes garlic and ginger, so what she used was quite much, besides, she had a lot of fried meat too
Ok thanks. I made this on Friday. Boy, the smell alone was simply out of this world. I used minced meat instead because that’s what I had and I couldn’t wait to try this recipe. This is definitely another winner from you.
Oh wow, with minced meat, I am impressed. Well done
My mouth waters….
Thanks Rachel
Great work girl
Thank you Ify
Hi Dooney
Am always amaze by your simple step by step recipes. More telent my dear. In Aunt Bukky’s beef & veg fiesta I can see the galic & ginger paste so much. Do we need it that much or is just d picture. I want to try it.
Thank & God bless
Oh I got it & it’s Yummy. U are great tanks to Aunt Bukky too. God bless
You are welcome Aisha, happy to help
Hi Aisha, she only needed that much because there was a lot of meat to go through
you are ah-may-zing and that’s putting it mildly