A common meal at virtually every Nigerian party, moin-moin is one meal that always hits a home-run. It is a traditional Nigerian food made with steamed ground beans and spices and can be eaten alone or as a side with other dishes such as fried rice, jollof rice, stew and more. This would however be an awesome addition to your home-cooked Christmas meals.
It’s pretty easy to put together, but it just has to cook for quite a while; up to 1 hour.
Serving: 6
Total time: 90 minutes.
Ingredients
- 1 kg of Mackerel
- 7 Cooked Eggs (optional)
- Half cup of vegetable oil
- 3 seasoning cubes
- Salt to taste.
- 1 cup of sliced onions
- Tatashe or shobo (about 5 to 10, it add the reddish color)
- Crayfish (1 cup)
- 3 cups of beans
- Soak the beans for about 1 hour (or overnight) and ten wash it, by scrubbing off the bean coat. Make sure to remove all the bean coat until you are left with white coat-less beans. If you have a good blender, you can grind the beans at this point, but if not, let the coat-less beans soak in water again for at least 2 hours to soften it further.
- Choose what extra garnishes you want to add to the Moimoi; If it's eggs, boil the eggs, remove the shells and slice into small pieces, then set aside. If it's fresh fish, boil the fish, remove bones and cut into small pieces. If you prefer corned beef or sardines, then take it out of the can, and set aside. Wash the peppers and slice the onions.
- Strain the beans, pour it into your blender (do this in batches). Add the peppers (you can also add thick tomato paste, to give it more color). Add the onions, crayfish and seasoning cubes. Add a little water to help the blender work better. Grind the beans until you get a very smooth consistency, without granules or beans lumps.
- If you're using bean flour, mix the flour in a little water to form a thick paste, then pour the paste into a blender; add the peppers, onion, crayfish and seasoning cubes and blend until smooth.
- Pour the blended beans into a wide bowl. Stir and slowly add some water. Continue stirring until you get a lighter consistency, but not too watery. Now, add the vegetable oil, taste for salt and if need be, add a little salt (remember you already added seasoning cubes, so go easy on the salt). Mix thoroughly and then take out your greased moin-moin containers or moin-moin leaves.
- Pour the mixture into each of the containers or moin-moin leaf and add your egg or any other garnishes you prefer. Seal or cover the containers and set aside.
- Now, line the base of your pot with foil paper or the some moin-moin leaves. Pour in some water and set to boil. When the water is boiling, place the sealed moin-moin into the pot of boiling water and leave to steam on medium to low heat
- As the moin-moin starts to cook. Add a little quantity of water from time to time, so that it doesn't begin to burn underneath. But be careful not to add to much water as it might get into the moin-moin containers and ruin the food by making it watery.
- After about 45 minutes, put a knife through the moin-moin; if the knife comes out clean, then the moi moi is ready. Note that the cooking time for moin-moin depends on the type of container you are using and also on the quantity of moin-moin. If you are cooking 5 pieces of moin-moin in a small pot, they will definitely cook faster than 30 pieces of moin-moin in a large pot.
- If you are in doubt about whether the moin-moin is well cooked or not; it is advisable to leave it to cook for about 1 hour (adding some water occasionally). The moin-moin tends to cook faster with the foil, nylons and leaves, but takes longer with the plastic bowl.
- Now, take out the moin-moin from the pot and leave to cool a bit before unwrapping or turning it onto a plate.
