Oh dear, where do I start from with how much detest unripe plantains. I really used to hate it as a child. What did my mother not try? The worst type is boiling it in water and serving it with egg sauce. Double Ugh!!! She used to also mash it and use as a thickener in some sauces. Ugh!! The memories are not so kind. She made it into a porridge, OMG I used to think to myself, can this woman just give this thing up already. We don’t like it. All of us never liked it thankfully, so this time it wasn’t just Miss fussy eater that was the problem. I remember the day she told me my beloved Ikpekere (plantain chips) that I could run across a moving vehicle to buy on the street was made from unripe plantains. You would have thought my pet died. It can be likened to telling a child Santa Claus is not real. Honestly. The impact was disturbing. How can something you like so much, be made from something you absolutely detest? I started looking at plantain chips a different way from that day, and my love for it dropped down a notch.
On the So You Think You Can Cook Facebook Page, our resident dietician and amazing cook Mrs Iquo Ukoh put up a picture of Unripe plantain porridge. It reminded me of my mum’s save for the cow leg that she cooked it with. I looked at it and thought, naaaaah. Not trying it out. The delicious Ukodo (urhobo pepper soup – recipe HERE) that I made on Sunday also calls for unripe plantain, but I intentionally left it out as I did not want it to ruin the soup for me. So you see, me and unripe plantain go back a long way and our history is not so pretty. It ranks up there with Garden Eggs. Now that I have found a way to enjoy garden eggs (my amazing but different garden egg stew recipe HERE), I thought to apply the same principle to unripe plantain porridge. Smother it with meat. You want me to eat something I don’t like? Easy, smother it with meat and I am a happy bunny. Ooops, I just gave out one of the secrets to making me happy. Future hubby, you had better buy shares in a meat factory cos your baby loves her some meat. Lol. My friends keep telling me, what if you suddenly hate meat when you get pregnant? It can happen you know? The look of sheer horror on my face is laughable. This is now followed by me knocking on every piece of wood I can find, and chanting, Lord forbid, Lord forbid, Lord forbid, snapping my fingers over my head in a circular motion at the same time. Lol. Hate meat, that must be my worst nightmare.
You guys must have noticed, I love me some Calabar-esque dishes. Anything from the South South – Cross River, Akwa Ibom, Ebonyi, Rivers and Delta, I love. I may not know how to pronounce it, but give me the recipe or cook it for me once and that’s it, I am sold. This dish is called Ukang Ukom by the Calabar’s or Ubobok Ukom by people from Akwa Ibom. After ignoring it in Ukodo, I am giving unripe plantain another chance. Here is how I showed it some love.
2 unripe plantains
1/4 cup chopped goat meat
1/4 chopped Cow leg
1/4 cup King Prawns
3 pieces of Cameroon pepper – substitute ata rodo or dry pepper (cayenne pepper)
1 handful of Efinrin – basil is a good substitute
1/2 cooking spoon of Palm Oil
1 small Red onion
Seasoning cube – knorr chicken cubes preferred
Salt
1 teaspoon of sugar – optional
1 – 1 1/2 cups of water
How To
1. Chop up the meats into cubes and chop the red onion finely and set aside
2. Heat up the palm oil in a pan, add the contents from Step 1 and fry till the meats darken in colour. This should take 2 – 3 minutes
3. Add half a cup of water to the pan, 1 piece of knorr chicken cubes, ground Cameroon pepper and salt to taste. Allow this to cook for 3 – 5 minutes to heat up and for the seasoning cube to take effect. Creating a delicious stock base.
4. Peel the skin off the unripe plantains, cut into rounds (not too thin, not too thick), add to the pan and lower the heat. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: unripe plantains are basically very tough. If you cook at high heat, the stock will evaporate faster than it can seep into the tough skin of the plantains.
Therefore you need the plantains to slowly simmer in the stock and absorb its flavour. Otherwise you will end up with a dish that tastes as if you boiled the plantains in water and added it to the stock. There is a method to creating this dish beautifully, stick to it and you won’t go wrong.
5. As the plantains cook, they will soften nicely, tasting juicy and oh so delicious You will notice that some may be soft enough to break into pieces, do so, but ensure that you still have enough rounds, so you don’t end up with baby food looking porridge. The stock is likely to have thickened considerably. At this point, I added water, but not just ordinary water, but 1/2 a cup of warm water that my dried Efinrin leaves have been steeping in for almost 20 mins. I can’t source fresh Efinrin you see, so the dried version to the rescue. If you have Fresh Efinrin or Basil, just add half a cup of warm water and save the fresh leaves for the next step.
6. Once you add the water, stir and allow the plantains to cook further in the now diluted stock for a few minutes, till the stock thickens. Taste for salt and seasoning and adjust if necessary, then add chopped Efinrin/Basil and allow the herbs to infuse into the pot for 2 minutes.
You should be able to smell and taste the addition of the herb. This really cements this dish perfectly.
I would like to point out, that unlike the other forms of Nigerian porridge that you will be familiar with, this is a more watery version. Think of it as unripe plantains cooked in a delicious Palm oil sauce.
Don’t be tempted to go over zealous with your spoon and mash-up the plantains to thicken the sauce. See the pictures above and below, this is the consistency that you should be aiming for. The sauce is thick, but not as thick as you would expect Yam porridge to be for example.
I am going to probably tick off a foodie purists from the South South, but I will go ahead and proudly proclaim that I took some foodie license with this recipe and added a teaspoon of sugar. In as much as I really loved this dish, its level on my taste buds satisfaction quotient was not as high as I wanted it to be, probably because of a lifetime of hating unripe plantains. My brain wasn’t connecting with my mouth because it expects some sweetness with plantains, but this dish was not hitting that area in my brain that gets activated by sweetness. More of a disconnect. To solve that problem, I added a teaspoon of sugar. Just a teaspoon and WHOA!!!!!! That was it. It rounded the dish off nicely. If like me, unripe plantains are not your thing, and you may not be interested in trying this out. Just cheat a little, add sugar and you will get the ripe plantain slightly sugary taste that is intensely satisfying. The same effect you have by boiling yam with salt and a little sugar. Apologies to any food purists, I did not mean to taint this dish, but the result I got, I won’t apologise for. Sweet and Savoury. Yum, Yum. Lol
………..and that’s it. Simple, simple simple. Either for a Weekend breakfast or light dinner. OMG, this is so good. Unripe plantains have climbed up the taste scale. I am no longer as scared to make Owo soup now. That delicious Palm Oil soup from the people of Benin eaten with boiled unripe plantain. Stay tuned
I got this bowl on Ebay, and it is a traditional Chinese bowl and it came with its own spoon. So I thought, why can’t I just plate Ubobok Ukom fancy with an Asian twist. I was quite pleased with the images
That is our Ubobok Ukom Fine dining style
omg!!! u make me want to cook this tomorrow
how do you manage to stay so slim
Lol. Genetics first and foremost plus portion control.
Wow this is so nice. My first time checking your blog. This is amazing madam, bless your kitchen Dooney. Do you have instagram and how do we follow you
I do have an instagram account and I have never used it. I will start doing so. Thanks for the encouragement
you can also use biscuit bone from cow meat, scent leaves mixed with a lil ugu to dilute the strong taste of the scent leaf. yours is really nice too, God bless
Oh, great. Thanks
Hey Dunni, ur ubobok ukom looks delicious 🙂 However, it doesn’t have to be very unripe plantain, we usually use half ripe plantain, that way, u get to enjoy d sweetness of d ripe plantain n health benefits of d unripe plantain and we usually don’t cut ours in circular shapes…..I don’t know how to define d shape we cut it but urs is still ok. Ur cooking method also differs but it doesn’t really matter, d end product and ur beautiful presentation is what counts d most. Good job once again, hugs.
Thank you Lyrics. That half and half tip is a a very good one. Thanks
hi Dunni, try parboiling d plantain and throwing away the water before adding to the stock to remove d stickiness
Nice. Thanks for the tip
hi duni,im a skul gal who luvs food,dats wat apns wen u watch 2 much of food netwrk,i luv all ur dishes,evry 1 of dem esp d kilishi pizza u best be sure dat im going to try evry1 of ur dishes wen i get home,my mum wuld be calin u soon doe,cos ill use up all her ingridents n gas lol.tnks dunni for evrytin i feel lyk ive known u for a long tym
Aaaaaaw, thanks Sanya. Just be prepared to use part of your pocket money to replace mummy’s gas so she won’t chase you out of the kitchen next time. Please let me know how the dishes turn out
Made this today for breakfast. Amazing! Added Ugwu leaves instead as that is what I had at home. Thank you for expanding my cultural horizon.
I also added a cooking spoon of dry crayfish when I put in the plantain.
It was delicious I am sure
You are welcome.
thanks for reminding me of a dish from my neck of the woods. i haven’t made this in about 20 years but it’s about time.
Dunni!!! I spent alllll weekend thinking of what to cook for this diet I’m on and getting tired of. This is such a great idea, even though I always HATED plantain porridge as a child. But this recipe looks amazing!!!!!!! I’ll def be trying it out this week, although I’ll have to substitute palm oil 🙁
On a different note, it’s simply sacrilege to misspell igbekere!!!! *wags finger* 😛
Hahahahahahahahaha D, thanks for the correction
Hands down, this is the most flavorful thing I’ve made this year. I can’t think of one single thing I’ve made that is more delicious than this. Porridge isn’t something I’ve ever really enjoyed so this is the first porridge I’m making ever and I was really nervous about messing it up but it came out perfectly. Palm oil is apparently compliant with my diet, so I didn’t even have to take it out, although I had to add some spinach. I’m so excited about this meal. Many thanks to you!
Aaaaaaaw, I was grinning from ear to ear, when I read your comment. Really pleased for you. Well done
But did u boil the meat b4 frying
Also English name of efinrin
Basil
yes, I did
Made mine today and must say not bad at all!