NKWOBI...

It's the day after Valentine's Day, and while a good number of you were being wined and dined in fancy restaurants, somewhere in Onitsha, one of my Igbo bros was enjoying his own date and a beer parlour with Nkwobi and Big Stout. All na love...

Nkwobi isn't something you absoultely have to get from a restaurant or "joint" because its a simple recipe...just find the spices and you are well on your way.

1 KG Cowleg

2 Cups Oil Bean Seed aka Ugba

1/4 Cup Palm Oil

Akanwuu (Pottash)

1 Teaspoon Ground Efura/Ehuru

Onions

1 Tablespoon Ground Crayfish

Utazi Leaf (optional)

Salt & Pepper

Chop cowleg into little pieces, season your cow-leg and cook until tender.

Take cow leg out of any left over stock and set aside. It should cool down a bit before being added to the sauce or it will spoil the consistency.

Put a little akanwu into a bowl and pour in some stock (if you have any left over) or add a little water, about 1/4 cup. Allow to stand as it dissolves some of the akanwu.

Get out your trusty little mortar or a bowl or pot and get your sauce started. Add efura/ehuru (if you have the whole efura seed, roast it a bit on an open flame, peel off the outer burnt shell and blend in a spice blender or pound in a mortar), ground crayfish, salt and pepper and mix up with a spoon. Add palm oil and then pour in the water/stock from the akanwu. Immediately the sauce will go from palm oil red/orange to a more pumpkin-like shade of orange and thicken up.

Add ugba to the paste and mix properly...

Toss in the cooked cow leg, mix properly and taste for seasoning.

If you want it hot you can put it back on the heat for 2 - 3 minutes. Take off and garnish with utazi and onion slices.

Serve with an ice cold Odeku!
:p