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you can make this with prawns, chicken, beef or other meat.

It’s one of those recipes with lots of different stories about where it originated. I’m not going to get into any of that here.

It's a great dish for when you have a bit of time to cook, maybe on a Sunday or when you have people coming round.

The prep for this recipe will probably take between 15-20 minutes. It will then cook for just under an hour.

[Stroke Assoc]: What ingredients have you got there?

Andrea: We have our rice and then the ingredients for our sauce. So

a small to medium-sized onion, a tomato, a pepper, a Scotch Bonnet pepper, some garlic and ginger. Then we have our spices and herbs, thyme, some curry powder, tomato paste, bouillon powder

,

oil, and some water for cooking the rice.

[Stroke Assoc]: That’s great. (to camera?) We’ll put a list of the ingredients in the video description.

(to Andrea) So what equipment and utensils do we need?

Andrea: You’ll need a knife and chopping board, a blender, a sieve, a large pot with a lid, some measuring spoons and a jug.

[Stroke Assoc]: You mentioned a blender, some of the people watching this might find it difficult to open and close these securely. Do you have any advice?

Andrea: If you find it hard using a blender with a screw top, you could try the ones with silicone lids that you can pull off or press down. The other thing you could use is a hand blender as they can be operated with one hand. You’ll need a sturdy mixing bowl or large measuring jug so you don’t get spills everywhere.

We’ll start by washing the rice. You can rinse it in the sieve and then just set it aside. I’ve already washed this, so you can see how the water is running clear. Actually doing this will take a couple of minutes.

Now we’ll chop the tomatoes, pepper, onion and ginger. These can be chopped quite roughly, as they’re just going to go into the blender.

[Stroke Assoc]: That feels like a lot of ingredients that need to be chopped up. You know, someone on our forum recently mentioned using a good pair of kitchen scissors to cut up herbs or even meat. Do you have any other tips for people struggling with chopping?

Andrea: There are specialist chopping boards of course, but they may not work for herbs or garlic or smaller things like that. If you can’t get your fresh spices chopped and packed from the supermarket you could use alternatives like pureed garlic in a tube or even tinned tomatoes for this recipe. But do be careful to read the labels with these, as they can be high in salt and oils.

[Stroke Assoc]: One of the things we saw when we asked people about the recipes we were thinking of including was that some people wanted lots of spicy foods and others asked for not so spicy things. Can you reduce how spicy you make this without sacrificing flavour?

Andrea: Of course. If you don’t want this to be too spicy, just use less of the Scotch Bonnet pepper. Or you could even leave it out and just add 1 to 2 teaspoons of Cayenne pepper.

Once you’ve got everything chopped, we’re going to make our sauce. If you need a rest, though, you can of course pop those in a bowl and cover them

.

Once you’re ready for the next step,

we’ll put those tomatoes, peppers, onion and garlic from before into the blender and whizz it up.

Once you’ve got that into a nice

consistency, heat up the oil in our large pot and add the sauce. Take care not to let the oil splash

.

Let it cook for about three minutes.

Now

add the curry powder, thyme, tomato paste and vegetable bouillon cubes. If you’re

watching your salt intake,

with that vegetable bouillon, you could use a low salt variety like we’re doing or make your own vegetable stock.

[Stroke Assoc]: We’ll link to a recipe for homemade stock in the description.

Andrea: And we cook that for another couple of minutes.

I have no idea. But it would be great if they could and even package up and save the sauce for a later date…

Now we take our rice, that’s all rinsed, and add it to the pan. Stir it so that the rice is totally covered by the sauce.

Once you’ve got it all

coated, add your water or vegetable broth

.

Bring this up to the boil and then cover and reduce to a low heat.

You’re going to let this cook for between 45 to 50 minutes. You’ll know when it’s ready when the rice is fluffy and tender. It shouldn’t be chewy.

[Stroke Assoc]: So if we wanted to add some cooked chicken or prawns,

when should we add them?

Andrea: I would normally add them along with the broth so the flavour seeps into the entire dish.

So now this is done, you can see that lovely colour and how fluffy the rice is.

[Stroke Assoc]: So colourful as well! Feels like a really good one to make if you’ve got people coming over.

Andrea: It’s perfect for that. Jollof rice is usually served for celebrations and birthdays and special occasions like that.

Scaling this up is fairly easy as well.

Especially once you’ve made it a few times and know how much spice you want in that sauce.

[Stroke Assoc]: And that’s our jollof rice. Let us know in the comments if you’ve tried it out yourself or if you have any questions.

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