Female: Now we make the amala which is always serve along with the agusi soup.
What is amala?
Florence: The amala here in this format, the powder format is called elubo.
Female: Elubo.
Florence: E-L-U-B-O, elubo. And when it’s prepared, all stirred up and prepared its called
amagh.
Female: Okay and this comes originally from what? So this is the flour.
Florence: Yes a flower, it’s in powder form. It comes from yam peel or yam when it’s dried
up. The yam peel is dried up.
Female: So you pound up the yams and make it into a powder.
Florence: Pound up the yam and turn it into powder. And that’s what we use to prepare the
amala.
Female: The water has been boiled, and now you take the pounded yam flour. Right? And
then you're just going to add it to the water that had been boiling but is now just
simmering.
Florence: Could you help me please?
Female: Yes, okay.
Florence: Thank you.
Female: So do you want me to hold it up?
Florence: Yes. I appreciate that.
Female: So it’s starting to form into like a paste.
Florence: Yes. But we have to do it fast enough. You cannot be too slow or too fast. You
can hold it up like that for a minute.
Female: So now it’s all coming together. That looks like it’s a workout.
Florence: Exactly.
Female: So how do you eat the amala?
Florence: Oh, well you eat it like, you know like almost like the we make a melon seed
balls.
Female: Oh, you eat with your hands.
Florence: Yes. We're going to put this in the liland and cover it up. Okay.
Female: You need another one of these?
Florence: Yes.
Female: So this is just, what's the purpose of this step?
Florence: Oh, the purpose of this step is just so.
Female: It rest a little bit?
Florence: It rest and then we will to give each individual. I give them to you. This is yours.
And this is mine.
Female: Oh, someone’s at the door.
Florence: Oh, here comes my guests. Oh my God.
Female: Okay, should we go and answer it?
Florence: Yes, why not?
Female: Okay.
Our special meal deserves a special celebration. Florence invited some of her
friends over from her church. And they didn’t show up empty handed, they
brought their own traditional Nigerian dishes to add to the feast.
Florence: This is Mother Rite, she is the head of all the women from the Celestial church of
Christ in the US province.
Female: So nice to meet you.
Florence: And Jasmine, also my friend.
Female: Hey, nice to meet you.
Florence: She's a beautician.
Female: Wonderful.
This looks amazing. Now you have to explain to me, I don’t know what any of
this is.
Florence: This is called ugi.
Female: Okay.
Florence: This is usually what we eat for breakfast.
Female: What is it made out of?
Florence: It’s made out of corn.
Female: Corn. Okay.
Florence: And this is also the akara. Akara is made out of beans.
Female: Akara.
Florence: Yes.
Female: Is it deep fried?
Florence: Deep fried in oil, hot oil.
Female: And this is a typical breakfast.
Florence: Exactly.
Female: Mama Rite, I would love for you to explain this dish for me.
Mama Rite: This is made out of corn.
Female: Corn.
Mama Rite: Yeah. That corn would be put into water and left for some days. Then it will be
grinded and shifted. Shifted one, we get second, and that’s when we put it in hot
water. The hot water then gets boiled and then we have that.
Female: So now tell me, what is this? This looks delicious.
Florence: This is basically for dinner. Its ebach.
Female: What are the ingredients?
Florence: Vegetables, spinach, for now. But since we're here, in the US we use spinach and
sometimes we mix it with bitter leaf. But here we don’t have bitter leaf.
Female: Okay, you can't get bitter leaf in America.
Florence: No, we can get bitter leaf in America. But I think, since I'm having guests, people
might not like bitter leaf. So I decided to leave it out.
Female: It’s too exotic of a flavor.
Florence: Exactly.
Female: Okay.
So what is this down here? This looks so delicious.
Florence: That’s the stew, just with the bell pepper, with tomatoes, with the pepper hot, hot
pepper.
Female: Spicy pepper.
Florence: Spicy pepper. And that, and then with cow skin and fried fish.
Female: Cow skin and fried fish.
Florence: And fried fish, yeah. That’s what you have. And what do you call it, Mama Rite?
Mama Rite: Its bocoto.
Florence: Its bocoto.
Female: And this is a traditional meal that you would serve. Very interesting. Well I know
that we have one more dish that we have to make before the rest of your friends
come over.
Florence: Exactly.
Female: So we should probably go back to the kitchen. You guys go ahead and sit down.
Florence: Let's go get the agusi and the amala.
Female: Okay, good. Alright.
Florence: Let's go. We’ll be right back Mama Rite.
Female: So nice to meet you, I can't wait to come back.
Male: Coming up, the savory flavors of jelof rice. A West African favorite. When A
Taste from the Melting Pot continues.
Female: Alright, so the first thing that you do with the jelof rice is?
Florence: I'm going to be putting in the onions, tomatoes, and then leave in the bell peppers.
Female: Okay, so we're going to sauté those up in some olive oil?
Florence: Yes.
Female: Jelof rice is a traditional dish found throughout western Africa, including Nigeria.
Florence: And then we're going to have the beef.
Female: Okay, this is the beef that we already cooked.
Florence: Exactly. With the broth.
Female: What about these hot peppers?
Florence: Thanks for reminding me about that.
Female: Oh yeah, I want to taste the spice man. Bring the heat. Is that when you add the
rice?
Florence: Yes. And then we put some water in it and had the rice. And that’s it.
I also have the already washed up rice that we're going to be using. And I'm going
to be having the three Maggi cubes.
Female: The buillion flavor.
Florence: Yeah, exactly. So this is all smalled can cooking. Now, what we're going to do,
we're just going to pour the rice in.
Female: Okay.
As the rice cooks, we make our final dish, fried plantains.
Alright now, the plantains go in the hot oil. Alright, we're going to see some
sizzling action. Careful.
Florence: Put it one by one.
Female: One by one? How long do the plantains cook?
Florence: Not too long.
Female: I love your answers, it’s not like 5 minutes, 30 seconds, it’s like well I know. This
is the most popular dish in western Africa.
Florence: Exactly.
Female: Meat with rice and vegetables and fried plantains.
Florence: It complements the other. Right? It’s something like sometimes you get a plate of
food and there's no meats, there's no chicken. You feel like, oh my God, there's
something missing. But with these, you have the plantains, you have the rice and
small pieces of meat in there, and its filling.
Female: Yes, and it looks delicious. So now I know that the rice is going to take another
15 minutes to cook. So why don’t we go out in to the living room now and hang
out with your friends while we wait for the rice to finish.