African Fusion Cooking

About

I am grandmother, 3 times over, was born in Nigeria and have lived in the UK since 1963. I came over with the aid of the British Council, who in those days encouraged young people from the Commonwealth to come to the UK to study and develop their skills. I married in 1965 and in the interim the Biafran war broke out in 1967, raged for 3 years, and I never went back. My second husband and I have travelled widely, especially since we retired, and the food we have tasted worldwide has inspired me to write a recipe book fusing African ingredients with European and other ingredients together with relevant herbs and spices.  For example, rather than making moussaka in the Greek style, I use plantain instead of aubergine.  One of my signature dishes (shown below) is my black-eyed beans and sweet potato pie, which is really like a shepherd’s pie but with black-eyed beans instead of mince and sweet potato instead of ordinary potato.

Appeared on  “Come Dine with Me – Medway” show, click here to watch on 30th May 2011, where you can enjoy my appearance on the show I cannot remember when last I enjoyed myself so much with the help of like-minded souls.Although I did not win the cooking contest – which was unfortunate – my dinner guests were not prepared to push food boundaries as they were quite happy not to move away from their comfort zone. Having said that, I did not find it off-putting, as it has given me the strength to carry on and convince people that there are a wide range of different tastes out there which they ought to explore.

Please enjoy the video above and leave comments. Thanks