I swear everyone knows how much I love African food. What people say about it and the misconceptions of it is totally false. Even though my ethnic background is German and I had dreams of traveling to other places and I have always loved to cook even when I was a little girl.
The books I have read has always took me in another world where I have used my imagination and I have had dreams that I didn’t know what was going to come true later.
I even seen the pictures on Instagram with Kitchen Butterfly on her travels and have become mesmerized by the artwork from the jewelry she bought and she showed it in breath taking detail on how lovingly each piece was made.
I feel the same way over poetry, a nice novel, music, even a ghazel which is poetry in Urdu language by the way. Also there are some in Pashto too as well and I enjoy listening to a very nice Pashto tapey.
It is like food a dish that is very much well made and it shows the love and care of what went in to that dish. I hope you like my sweet potato pottage recipe.
In 1 pot I have washed the sweet potatoes and boiled them with the jackets on for 45 to 55 minutes. I drained and let it cool and peeled them. The skin came right off. I boiled 1 piece of salt fish 1 piece of smoked dry fish and 5 small stockfish pieces while it was cooking for 1/2 hour. I drained the fish and let it cool and I was taking the bones out of the dry fish, salt fish and stockfish pieces.
I added 1 tbs of palm oil to the pot and added 5 green onions cut in small pieces. You can use 1 shallot or any color of onion that you choose. I added the sweet potatoes I boiled and mashed them in the pot while I was at it and I added 1 packet of halal beef jerky.
They can be found at any halal store. If you don’t see them ask for them. I added 5 sweet peppers that I cut in tiny pieces, 2 cloves of garlic, stirred and added 1 bullion cube, 3 drops of maggi or knorr aroma, 1 habenero or scotch bonnet that I deseeded and ground in my mortar and pestle and added that too the pot and stirred.
I put in there 1/4 cup of water and a pinch each of dawadadawa powder, red chili powder, paprika, crayfish and uziza leaves and stirred. I added some grated nutmeg stirred some more and covered the pot for 5 minutes.
When I was ready to eat I took some out and this picture was almost not taken because I was so hungry then I prayed for sabir just once so I can take the picture of this lovely dish.
Sabir is an Arabic word for patience and ok I was rewarded at the end when I snapped the photo with my smart phone finally that I was finally able to indulge in this delicious treat in front of me.
I hope you like this a lot because it was a lot of fun to make and it was purely delicious.
Addendum: if you can’t find mini sweet peppers, add 1 bell pepper of any color except for red. This is ok too. Either purée or cut in tiny pieces whatever works for you.
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