Recipe: Tuozaafi & Ayoyo Stew

Photo credit - thepicta.com

Ingredients
1 bunch Ayoyo leaves (Corchorus Olitorius), 1 piece Salt Petre, 1 tsp Dawadawa (African Locust bean) 1 tbs spoon powder Pepper, 4 medium Onions Meat (enough), 4 pieces of dried fish, 1 smoked salmon, 4 medium Fresh tomatoes, 1small tin tomatoes, salt to taste, water 6 tbs palm oil, any spices preferred 4 cups of corn flour

Method
Wash Ayoyo leaves thoroughly and cut into tiny pieces and put water on fire in cooking pot. Add saltpeter when water boils and add cut Ayoyo leaves in the boiled water and stir periodically.

Then beat the leaves with your ladle until it becomes slimy with bubbles. Bubbles will rise but continue to beat it until it settles to prevent loss of your healthy Ayoyo into the fire to create a mess in your kitchen.

When it does not rise again, it means Ayoyo is cooked. Remove from fire and set it aside. Wash all the ingredients, and cut meat into pieces. Steam your meat well with chopped onions.

Add pepper, tomatoes, salt and spices preferred. Stir to get the tomatoes cooked well. Add dawadawa and dried fish. Pour your palm oil into it and reduce the temperature of the fire.

Let it stew for 10minutes and add the salmon. For the next 20- 30 minutes, leave it on the fire and allow it to cook and stir regularly. When ready, you can choose to pour the boiled Ayoyo into the stew and mix it up or serve them separately on top of the Tuo.

For the TUO Zaafi, put water on fire to simmer about three quarters the size of your pot. Take one cup of the corn flour and mix with cold water and stir with your hand until you get a thoroughly mixed smooth and light solution. Add the corn flour solution to the boiling water and stir thoroughly with a wooden spatula to avoid crumps.

Like a form of porridge, leave it to boil for 10minutes. Fetch some of the porridge (about 1/3) aside. Now add rest of the corn flour to the remaining porridge and stir non-stop.

You must be very smart at this point to prevent your Tuo from developing into lumps.

Add the flour bit by bit till hard enough to ‘paddle’. In fact the Tuo must be soft so add the porridge you fetched and put aside little by little and keep ‘paddling’.

Within 20-30 minutes of stirring under constant heat, your Tuo Zaafi should be ready .Serve hot with the Ayoyo stew on top. Enjoy your home made TZ.