Locust beans (which we know very well as iru, ogiri) is a traditional food flavour which is highly nutritious.

Although the thought of adding this flavour in rice (jollof rice for that matter) sounds a little absurd, right? I know, but the resulting taste is incredible. You know how tasty your sauce tastes when you fry with palm oil and garnished with smoked fish, diced meat, onion, ponmo and green pepper. That's just a bit of what this rice tastes like.

Cooking this rice, you're totally allowed to experiment with any kind and all sorts of additional ingredients you'd love to use for garnishing and flavour.

Ingredients

1. Rice (parboiled)

2. Palm oil

3. Locust beans

4. Smoked fish

5. Onion

6. Freshly ground pepper mix

7. Ugwu leaf (sliced)

8. Crayfish (grounded)

9. Salt to taste

10. Seasoning cube

11. Beef (diced)

12. Tomato (for garnish)

Preparation

1. Heat up some palm oil in a cooking pot. Add in chopped onion and fry till the onion gets soft.

2. Wash the locust bean. Add it into the pot alongside the pieces of the smoked fish, diced beef and let it fry till the aroma begins to ooze out.

3. Pour the pepper mix into the pot. Add salt to taste, seasoning cubes and crayfish. Stir and leave for 5 minutes to get everything properly mixed together.

4. Add some water (enough water to cook the rice) and leave it to boil.

5. Introduce the parboiled rice into the content in the pot. Cook for about 15 minutes or until the rice is soft and tender.

6. When the rice is soft, add the ugwu leaves and sliced tomatoes. Stir and leave it to simmer for about 2 minutes.

Serve and enjoy a yummy plate of Native jollof rice with iru.