Nigerian Moi Moi

Instructions

1. Peel the beans using a bender. Put the beans into a bowl, add some water to cover them, and leave to soak for 10-15 minutes, or a little more.
2. Blend the beans with a little water a handful at a time; use the pulse setting to start and stop, without allowing the blender to go more than 3 seconds at a time. This will help the skin (of the soaked dry beans) to loosen. Put into another large bowl; repeat the process for all the beans.
3. To rinse, make sure the bowl with loosened beans has enough water, gently start rinsing off the floating chaff/skin. The skins should float to the top; they are lighter than the seed. The goal is to rinse off only the skin and not the (white) bean seed. Rinse thoroughly and set the clean seed aside.
4. Wash the onions, bell pepper, and garlic and set aside. Open the tin of tomato paste.
5. Have ready a large clean mixing bowl.
6. Gently start blending the peeled beans, in batches, with onions, pepper, garlic, and a small amount of tomato paste plus water (yes, I like adding my tomato paste alongside the other ingredients and blending everything together.)
7. Once blended, pour the mixture into the big mixing bowl. Repeat the above process to blend the whole beans about three times or so. (For the amount of beans in this recipe, I use about 2½ -3 cups of water.)
8. After blending, place a big pot on the stove on a low heat and add small some water , about 1-1½ cups.
9. In the big mixing bowl, add all the other condiments: salt, red pepper, nutmeg, and vegetable oil. Also, add ground crayfish if using it.
10. Use a wooden spoon to give a good stir to combine all the ingredients.
11. For this final process, you need a moi-moi wrapper (basically something to wrap the paste in to steam it. Some people use banana leaves, foil, or moi-moi pouches.
12. Use a spoon or cup and gently scoop some moi-moi paste into the moi-moi pouch. Ensure that each bag has an equal amount of paste for even cooking.
13. Close each wrapper tightly, then place them in the pot or steamer. Cover the pot, and turn the heat from low to medium-high. As it “steams”, the water will evaporate. Ensure you keep adding water to the pot to avoid it drying out.
14. Cook for about 30-35 minutes or until the moi-moi is ready (and you will know that it is ready by opening one of them and cutting right through. It will be firm and the color will have intensified a bit.)
15. Serve with rice, avocado or Nigerian stew.

Disclaimer: These recipes have been shared by participants in the neighbourhood network meetings. This website takes no responsibility for the source of these recipes.