When I first posted this picture, I had no idea I would be asked for the recipe. To me, it’s a pretty simple dish and I’m happy I’m able to make it. Alhamdulillah. My blogger friend Fiona urged me to post the recipe so here it is.
Note to Doyin: This is a better place to get the recipe. 😛
There two kinds of vegetables that I’ve used to make efo so far are called tete and shoko in my native language. FYI, the latter is more expensive but worth the price. You can even taste the expensiveness. A quick search on google should show you what they look like.
I will take you through the way I made it. Others may disagree but I can assure you, it came out finger licking good! 🙂
You will need:
- Tete or Shoko vegetables (or just plain old spinach)
- Water
- Seasoning cubes
- Blended peppers and tomatoes (optional) – These were blended at home
- Palm oil (optional)
- Vegetable oil (optional)
(You can use one or a combination of 2/3 of the optional ingredients listed above)
- Beef, chicken and/or dried fish (optional)
Method
Pick the leaves, including the leaf stalk and put them in a big bowl. As the leaves will most probably be very sandy, you will need to wash them thoroughly with cold water after picking them. Drain the leaves making sure to remove as much of the sand grains as possible. I washed them about four/five times.
Unfortunately the leaves had started to wilt as it had been a long journey from where they were bought to the house.
I had black stains in my index finger for about two days. 😛
After washing with cold water, blanch the vegetables i.e pour boiling hot water on the vegetables. Now some would say that you remove the vegetables after a few minutes and put them in cold water to stop the cooking process. I don’t do that. I wait for the water to cool down and when it’s bearable, I remove the vegetables from the water, make a mould, squeeze the water out and cut them. For this particular batch, I added cold water to the bowl to speed up the cooling process.
We’re now halfway there!
Next thing to do is to put the vegetables in a pot, add a little water (not more than half a cup as there’s already enough water in the vegetables) and put the burner on medium-low heat. Now, I don’t have any precise measurements here but for the amount of efo I had, I added about two cooking spoons of the blended pepper and tomato purée. I then added about 3/4 of a cooking spoon of palm oil. The aroma from the pot after adding the palm oil was heavenly! I didn’t use any vegetable oil as I like to keep food as oil free as possible. I even forget to add vegetable oil to certain meals at times! Yes, I know I added palm oil but trust me, you should too. 🙂
You can then add your seasoning cubes and the rest of the items on the ingredients list. I used 4/5 seasoning cubes. You can add as much or as little as you want, depending on your preference. I then added the dried fish a.k.a eja gbigbe to the pot after I had shredded them. The dried fish is really cat fish that has been dried under the sun. It is also pretty oily but is very delicious! It can be eaten before cooking but for hygienic purposes, you should cook it first.
After you add all these to your pot, stir everything together and cover the pot allowing all the flavourful ingredients to form a harmony. As the vegetables are already pretty much cooked, it should take about 10 minutes of simmering for your efo to be cooked.
Alternatively, you can put all other ingredients in the pot first before adding the efo. This will allow the dried fish to soften. You can then put in the vegetables last. Once again, cooking for 10 minutes should do the trick.
For those of you that will use chicken, beef or a combination of both, I’d advise that you cook them first before adding them to the pot.
Thus ends my rather peculiar recipe. I say peculiar because a friend of mine finds the way I write recipes ‘amusing’. I hope this is easy to follow and I wish you luck in your efo-making ventures!
P.S
Whether you have an Instagram account or not, you can always stop by my page for your foodie fix. I post there more frequently nowadays while I’m trying to navigate the Lagos foodie world.
AYAMSTUFFED 
Ade that looks delicious!! I’ll try this with spinach and maybe some fish or beef😀 I hope you’ll post the smoothie recipe next☺
Thank you Fiona! Thinking about posting the smoothie recipe. 😊😊
Wow nice recipe! Thank you for posting this. I loved your pictures too.
xxSerena
Thank you very much Serena!! I’m glad you enjoyed it. 🙈😊😁
I have been very lucky to benefit from sumptuously dining on the efo. More delicious than those delicious pictures. May I counsel that less dried fish be used next time?
Nice one! I look forward to eating the product of this very easy to follow recipe accompanied with? by? my long awaited akara!!😉
Happy birthday, Miss Adetunji!
Haha, I will make the akara for you Insha Allah! Thank you very much.
Guess its Efo Roro’s recipe u just outlined. Just wonder y Ms Rekiiya is advocating less dried fish ? Just curious. Well done
Aunty Tonia, I am sure you guessed it is because I am the one who is shelling out the moolah!