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Friday, January 16, 2015

Tilapia; Nigerian Style

Our Nigerian friend has  been telling us that she would show us how to make Nigerian-style tilapia for a few weeks now, so we finally had a weekend without obligations to take her up on it. Ruwais has a good fish market (we are on the gulf) so that's where Ben took her first.
Right next to the fish market is a fish-cleaning center. It cost 4 dirhams for 5 fish, or about a dollar. They gutted and trimmed the fish.

They will fillet it for you if you want, but since she wanted to fry this fish and the meat is so tender it will disintegrate easily if filleted, she left it with bones and skin. 

When they brought them home they looked like this. I'm not used to working with fish at all, especially fish with eyes...

We washed and salted the fish and prepared a puree of garlic, ginger, chili powder and red onion.

She made two diagonal cuts on each side of the fish and rubbed the puree into them as well as in the inside of each of them.

After frying, they looked like this. We served it with "chips" and a salad. I made the dressing from yogurt, avocado, lime and cilantro and it went well with the fish.

It was delicious! Everybody enjoyed it and we really liked learning something new.

In addition to food, she has taught us the following words in Yoruba:

Eja- fish
Ediye- chicken
Bawoni- hello, how are you
Osheh-thank you
Coshelo- go away!
Eshegoma- thanks so much 
Kotope- you're welcome 

3 comments:

  1. Bawoni,

    That is so awesome to learn a new way to prepare fish and a bit of a new language. I bet the fish rub would taste great on other types of fish. Not sure how I would like to prepare fish with eyes. I would probably think they were looking at me. lol!! But God sends people and things in our life for a reason. So glad you were able to do it as a family.

    Blessings,
    Michelle, Donavyn,
    and Justin says, "Hi" to his "Grape jelly loving friend". lol
    HUGS!!

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    Replies
    1. Bawoni!
      Good to hear from you! :D
      Justin really should try some apricot jam for once... grape jelly is so boring.
      Yes, the eyes were a little disconcerting, but it was delicious. Talia even wanted more.
      HUGS!

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    2. Bawoni!!!
      It is good to hear from you too!! :D
      I know right, about Justin. lol!! I actually got him to try some strawberry preserves couple weeks ago. lol!!.
      So awesome that Talia even wanted to have more of it. I remember when y'all were here last and every time Elias wanted more of something he would say, "Bite". Did Ezra and Elias like it too?

      HUGS!!

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