Maraman’s Ivorian Fried Rice(Le riz gras)

So I am a member of this group on facebook called “So you think you can cook.” And I got this inspiration from there. Atim, also a food blogger with Afrolems.com  had posted an Ivorian dish called “Kedjenou” on the group. Coincidentally, I was spending some time with Maraman my Ivorian friend and we were discussing food and she said “Nma you have to learn how to make my country’s fried rice.” I had been wanting to learn how to make this rice, which is also known as Le riz gras(thank you Immaculate for the research) and with Atim’s dish(which I tried…yummy by the way), I knew I had to learn how to cook this rice. It felt so good learning how to make a delicacy from another country and actually creating it. This is what my research with “Dine Africa” is about. Africa as a continent is filled with different cultures and different types of food. Another funny thing about African cooking is; one dish can have so many ways of making it hence the “freshness” of each recipe. According to google, in my country Nigeria alone, there are about 527 languages, so you can imagine how many translations to each recipe we have and how much there is to learn about food and African cooking. I have to be honest and say that sometimes it is quite overwhelming, but I have to remind myself  to pace myself. Any way before I talk too much, this is my friend’s and my variation of the Ivorian fried rice.

Oh and by the way Mary-Courtney approves of my rice…she is Maraman’s youngest child

 

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4.0 from 1 reviews
Ivorian Fried Rice
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
This is a savory dish by the Ivorians.
Author:
Recipe type: Dinner
Cuisine: Ivory Coast
Serves: 4-6
Ingredients
  • 2cups of medium to long grain rice(do not preboil)
  • 1piece of ata-rodo
  • One large onion
  • 2large cloves of garlic
  • 2fingers of carrots(diced)
  • one medium to large bell pepper(any color works)
  • 2cups of chicken(I used the boiling chicken for more flavor)
  • 1-2tbsps of yellow mustard
  • Itbsp of tomato puree(optional)
  • one cooking spoon of cooking oil
  • 2 fresh tomatoes(diced)
  • A handful of shredded cabbage
  • shrimp...clean and deveined(optional)
  • Green onion(cut into little pieces)
  • I packet of Knorr
  • 1tsp black pepper
  • 1tsp thyme
Instructions
  1. Wash rice until water runs clear and set aside
  2. Blend half of an onion, a garlic glove, and ata-rodo
  3. in a pot, season chicken with half of the blended paste, salt, and a knorr cube. Do not add water. Let the chicken cook in it's juices. Once the juices have dried a bit, add some water to the level of the cooking chicken and adjust the seasonings.
  4. Once chicken is cooked, drain it out of the meat stock.
  5. heat a cooking spoon of oil in another pot, add the chicken into the oil and slightly fry. Slice or dice the other half of the onion and mix with the mustard. Stir the mixture into the oil and sauté until translucent. Stir in the other garlic clove after grating or cutting it into small pieces; and sauté until fragrant. Add the other half of the onion and ata-rodo blend along with the tomatoes(you may add the tomato paste, but I did not use any), cabbage, bell pepper, carrots, and sauté for about 2 minutes(you do not want to over cook your vegetables) Add the meat stock, black pepper, and thyme; then adjust seasonings. Bring the stock to a boil(at this point you may remove the carrots and cabbage, but in order to cut down on cooking time I did not add the cabbage, I only added the carrots, and I did not remove it. I stirred in the cabbage along with the shrimp at the end).
  6. Add rice, bring to a boil then reduce heat and cover. Cook rice until aldente.( you may re introduce and stir in the cabbage and carrots into the cooked rice if you had taken them out earlier).
  7. Adjust seasonings and stir in some of the green onion and shrimp if using some. Set aside and let rice rest before serving. (You may garish this dish with the remaining green onions and some green peas. Or use the shredded cabbage and carrots which you took out earlier)
  8. I served mine with some slightly grilled jumbo scallops

 

 

5 comments

  1. Zee says:

    Ma’am, this looks amazing!!!
    Pls, is SYTYCC still on Facebook? I mistakenly left the group n I can’t find it again!

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