Discover the spicy delights of… West African cuisine
Each month we explore a restaurant trend, highlighting the key dishes and ingredients. This month, Jeremy Chan, co-founder of West African restaurant Ikoyi in London (ikoyilondon.com), guides us through West African dishes and ingredients, and how Ikoyi gives them a unique twist.
Scotch bonnet
A sweet, fruity chilli with intense heat, Scotch bonnets are fundamental in West African cooking. We use them in all forms on the menu – pickled, dried, fermented, grilled and stewed. They deliver so much mouth-watering flavour and fragrance – we love them!
Banga bisque
This is our interpretation of banga soup – a southern Nigerian palm fruit based soup. We make a shellfish bisque using roasted prawn shells, confit and roasted tomatoes, chillies and an umamirich broth to carry the banga spices. Banga has an almost anise, clove-like flavour and we finish the bisque with raw gin.
Efo riro
The earthy flavour and aroma of this efo riro, a Western Nigerian vegetable soup, comes from ‘irú’ (fermented locust beans) which are the West African equivalent to miso or fermented black bean. They’re protein-rich, pungent and fundamental to creating the base of flavour for this soup and other stews.
Benne seeds
Benne seeds are a sweet, nuttier variety of sesame. They’re ubiquitous in Nigeria. We caramelise the benne with cashew and blend with roasted chicken wing stock, crayfish, caramelised onions, confit lemongrass & scotch bonnet chillies to create a silky, sweet sauce with depth of flavour and a lot of punch.
Tigernut milk
Tigernuts are small dried tubers from Nigeria, not actually from the nut family. After soaking them in water for 24 hours, we blitz them to create a paste which is then strained to produce a milk with the mild, sweet flavour of chestnuts. We infuse the milk with bay leaf and toasted black cardamom and use it to baste our cured, grilled mackerel, adding umami with fermented fish sauce and acidity with lemon juice.
Penja pepper
Penja pepper is the white volcanic peppercorn of Cameroon. We blend the white with green and black penja as well as other varieties like cubeb. The peppercorn mixture is toasted, ground and sifted into a crumb of fermented dried cassava, roasted in chicken fat. The result is a super crispy, almost breadcrumb texture which we add to the confit, glazed chicken oyster.