Beef with Calabash Nutmegs is a traditional Nigerian recipe for a classic stew of beef cooked in red palm oil, flavoured with iru (fermented locust beans) and ground calabash nutmegs that's thickened with ground crayfish. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Nigerian version of: Beef with Calabash Nutmegs.
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This is a rather unusual Nigerian soup that uses whole dried whole, dried calabash nutmegs Monodora myristica rather than just the internal kernels, which is more typical.
Ingredients:
500g beef
4 calabash nutmegs (dried wild mangoes)
300ml red palm oil
1 large tomato, diced
1 onion, chopped
1 red bell pepper
50g iru (fermented locust beans) cakes
60g dried crawfish (dried prawns), ground
salt and freshly-ground black pepper
Method:
Cut the beef into pieces, place in a pan, season and cover with water. Bring to a boil, cover the pot and cook for about 40 minutes, or until the beef is tender.
In the meantime, grind the calabash nutmegs to a fine powder. Heat half the palm oil in a pan and work in the calabash nutmeg powder.
Heat the remaining red palm oil in another pan and add the diced tomato, whole bell pepper, chopped onion, locust beans, cooked meat (drain this) and ground crawfish. Bring to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes then add the calabash nutmeg powder.
Cook for 10 minutes further and serve hot with pounded yam or fufu.
