Chin chin
Chin Chin is a fried snack popular in Nigeria and West Africa. It is a sweet, hard, donut-like baked or fried dough of wheat flour, eggs, and other customary baking items. Chin chin may also contain cowpeas. Many people also bake it with ground nutmeg for flavor. It is usually kneaded and cut into small squares of 1 square inch or so, about a quarter of an inch thick, before frying. It is a common food served on the street, weddings,and social gatherings in Nigeria.Kuli-kuli
Kuli-kuli is a Hausa food that is primarily made from peanuts. It is a popular snack in Ghana and Nigeria. It is often eaten alone or with a mixture of garri, sugar and water popularly called "garri soakings". It is also eaten with kooko,fula, kamu; and is sometimes ground and put into salad.
To make Kuli-kuli, peanuts are roasted and then ground into a paste. The paste is then mixed with spices, salt, and sometimes ground pepper. The paste is stripped of excess oil with water, and made into the desired shape (round balls, cylinders, etc.). The oil removed in this process is then heated and used to fry the shaped peanut paste until it solidifies. It is then removed from the oil and allowed to cool down until ready to be eaten.
Kokoro (snack food)
Kokoro is a common snack food in Nigeria. It is made from a paste of maize flour mixed with sugar and gari (cassava) or yam flour and deep-fried.[1]In a 1991 study of foods sold to schoolchildren in Lagos, samples of kokoro were bought from the stalls and subjected to microbiological analysis. Ten different types of bacteria were isolated, including bacteria associated with food poisoning and diarrhea, pointing to the need to improve control of hygiene in their preparation, and to look for ways to extend shelf life.
In a study that aimed to find a version with improved nutrition value, it was found that de-fatted soybean or groundnut cake flour could be used, but the taste and texture were not acceptable at more than 10% of the total flour. Another nutritionally improved snack derived from kokoro was developed by extrusion cooking of different mixes of maize, soybean and condiments such as pepper, onion, salt, palm oil, plantain and banana.
Meat pie
History
The beginnings of the meat pie can be traced back to the Neolithic Period, around 9500 BC. The ancient Egyptians' diet featured basic pies made from oat, wheat, rye, and barley, and filled with honey and baked over hot coals.These pies were eventually adopted by the Greeks, and it is there that a flour-water paste substance closely resembling pie pastry was created and was first filled with meat. In Greece, these pies were usually fried or cooked under coals. The Romans, tasting the delicacy from the Greeks, incorporated it into their own diet with little changes. According to the records kept by the wealthy, Romans used a variety of meats, oysters, mussels, lampreys, and fish as filling and a mixture of flour, oil, and water to keep it in. This 'pastry' cover was not meant to be eaten and was thrown away.
In combination with the spread of Roman roads, the invading crusaders encounter the dish and brought the recipes to Medieval Europe. In Northern Europe, cooks created the pastry using fats like lard and butter to make stiff dough to hold an upright pie. These medieval pastry dishes were called "coffins/coffyns", which means a basket or box. According to Janet Clarkson in Pie: A Global History, the "coffins" were:
- savory meat pies with the crusts or pastry being tall, straight-sided with sealed-on floors and lids. Open-crust pastry (not tops or lids) were known as "traps." These pies held assorted meats and sauce components and were baked more like a modern casserole with no pan (the crust itself was the pan, its pastry tough and inedible). These crust were often made several inches thick to withstand many hours of baking.
This pastry became a staple dish in medieval times, and was eventually called "pyes" or "pies". The origin of this name comes from the type of meat commonly used as filling. Beef, lamb, and duck were employed, but a majority of the time it was the magpie pigeon that was the main ingredient Magpies in medieval England were originally named pie. Some historians think that the popular usage of 'pie' birds led to the pastry dish being named pie as well. While etymologists suggest that pies were named after these birds "from a supposed resemblance between the miscellaneous contents of pies and the assortment of objects collected by thieving magpies." The first use of the word "pie" as food is referenced in 1303 by the Oxford English Dictionary; also stating that the term became popular and widely utilized by 1362
The French and Italians specialized in redefining the pastry of the pie, making it flakier and tastier by new methods of adding butter, rolling, and folding the dough. In 1440, the Paris pastry guild was recognized and started to expand their product—and so something like the modern day crust began to be used.
Missionaries and explorers spread the meat-based pie dish across the global. The English Pilgrims of the North American colonies brought the recipes across the ocean with them. The crust of the pie was useful to preserve food during the long winter months in America (just as the pies were used in antiquity). But the pie was not considered popularly there until the 1800s, where today meat pies have lost their popularity to be replaced with sweet pies.
Today, there are different types and variations of meat-pies enjoyed all across the world.
Sausage roll
A Sausage Roll is a type of savoury convenience food commonly served at parties and available from bakeries and milk bars as a take-away food item. Originating from the United Kingdom, it is also very popular in the Republic of Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, and the Netherlands.
Composition
The basic composition of a sausage roll is generally a sheet or sheets of puff pastry formed into tubes around sausage meat and glazed with egg or milk before being baked. They can be served either hot or cold.Varieties
Some variations on the basic recipe include fillings of chopped vegetables, such as carrots, onions, or courgettes; the addition of seasonings such as herbs and spices; and the use of split sausages.Sausage rolls are served and sold in various lengths from 1 inch (2.5 cm) so called "party" or "cocktail" sausage rolls, up to 7 inches (18 cm) or so. In the UK, Republic of Ireland, Australia and the Netherlands, they are available as 12 inches (30 cm) "jumbo" sausage rolls.
Scotch egg
A Scotch egg consists of a hard-boiled egg (with its shell removed) wrapped in a sausage meat mixture, coated in breadcrumbs or rolled oats, and deep-fried. Scotch eggs are commonly eaten cold, typically with salad.
Origin
The London department store Fortnum & Mason claims to have invented Scotch eggs in 1738, but they may have been inspired by the Moghul dish nargisi kofta ("Narcissus meatballs")The earliest printed recipe is the 1809 edition of Mrs. Rundell's A New System of Domestic Cookery. Mrs. Rundell - and later 19th-century authors - served them hot, with gravy.Serving
Scotch eggs are usually a picnic food and home-made. In the UK, pre-packed, plastic-wrapped Scotch eggs are commonly available in supermarkets, convenience stores and motorway service stations.
Miniature versions of Scotch eggs are also widely available in British supermarkets, and are sold under the name 'savoury eggs', 'picnic eggs', 'party eggs', 'snack eggs' or similar. These contain chopped egg or a quail's egg, rather than a whole chicken egg, and sometimes contain mayonnaise or chopped bacon.
Several local variations exist, such as the "Manchester egg" which uses a pickled egg wrapped in a mixture of pork meat and Lancashire black pudding and the Worcester Egg, where the egg is first pickled in Worcestershire Sauce and then clad in a mixture of local sausagemeat and white pudding.
In the United States, many "British-style" pubs and eateries serve fresh-made Scotch eggs. These are usually served hot, with dipping sauces such as ranch dressing, hot sauce, or hot mustard sauce. At the Minnesota State Fair, true to fair tradition, Scotch eggs are served on a stick.
In West Africa, some fast-food restaurants offer Scotch eggs alongside their other menu items. In Nigeria, Tantalizers and Mr. Biggs both prominently feature Scotch eggs.
In the Netherlands a similar snack item called an eierbal is served hot at greasy spoon ("snackbar") type establishments, mostly in the Northern and Eastern Netherlands. In the Netherlands and Belgium, Scotch eggs may also be called vogelnestje 'little bird's nest' because they contain an egg.
Coconut candy
Manufacturing process
The production of coconut candy starts with the grating of fresh coconut flesh. The grated flesh is then pressed to extract coconut milk and coconut cream. The next step is the addition of malt syrup and sugar to this mixture of coconut milk and cream. The ratio of the various ingredients is a closely guarded secret of individual coconut candy manufacturers. The mixing process is often entrusted only to family members of the factory owner. Slight variations in the ingredient ratios can lead to very different texture and taste in the final product.The mixture is then heated to a very high temperature in large woks over fires generated by the burning of coconut shells. While being heated, the mixture is stirred continuously to ensure even heat distribution. Traditionally, this stirring process was done manually with large wooden paddles. In larger modern manufacturing facilities, these paddles have been replaced by electric motors. The mixture eventually caramelises to a thicker texture. Recognising when the mixture has been cooked to the right level is more of an art than an exact science. While it is still hot and soft, the thickened mixture is then stringed out into moulds and allowed to cool. The final step sees the candy strings cut into rectangular lozenges, then wrapped and packaged.
Traditionally, coconut candy is wrapped in two layers of wrappings. The inner layer is edible rice paper, and the outer layer is paper soaked in vegetable oil. These measures were necessary to stop the candy from sticking to the paper wrapping. Larger manufacturers now use heat-sealed foil paper, which does not stick to the candy.
