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Nigeria’s Mother Sauce

Nigeria’s Mother Sauce is a traditional Nigerian recipe for a classic sauce of tomatoes, Romano bell peppers and hot chillies that forms the flavour base for a large number of Nigerian recipes (including Jollof rice). The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Nigerian version of: Nigeria’s Mother Sauce.

prep time

20 minutes

cook time

40 minutes

Total Time:

60 minutes

Serves:

6

Rating:

Tags : Chilli RecipesSauce RecipesVegetarian RecipesNigeria Recipes

This grew out of a conversation with my wife, as we were comparing French, Ivorian and Nigerian (specifically Igbo) cooking techniques and attitudes. The French like classifying and so they have classed all the base sauces and their variations. Ivorian cookery has some of that, but the concept is mostly lacking in Nigeria. However, if you look at Nigerian cookery, particularly in the fast-food places (Nigerian fast food is a delight, traditional foods brought into the modern age). Just like international Indian restaurants they have pared down the classic recipes and divided it into components that can be prepared separately and then combined to make different dishes. From this there does appear to be a ‘mother sauce’ which you can use as a base to prepare jollof rice, stews (served with rice) and at least some soups (stews served with other accompaniments). When you pare the recipes down preparing the basic ‘stew’ sauce of tomato, chilli and bell pepper you have the base flavouring for most of these recipes ready. As we a glut of tomatoes in the garden (the monkeys hadn’t got them this year) and our usual glut of Ivorian scotch bonnets (hot and tasty) and there were Romano peppers in the supermarket (these are the tatashe bell peppers beloved in Nigerian cookery) we decided to make a huge batch of the mother sauce both for preserving and freezing. Superficially this is similar to obe ata, Nigerian red bell pepper sauce, except that Obe Ata has red palm oil and garlic (Westernized versions may also have much less chilli, but are not so authentic).

Ingredients:

500g fresh plum (jam) tomatoes, ripe, chopped
500g tatashe (Romano bell peppers, red of course), de-seeded and chopped
12 hot red chillies (Scotch bonnet or habanero for preference)
4 tbsp neutral oil (I used rapeseed as we had that in the house)
salt and freshly-ground black pepper to taste
pinch of brown sugar

Method:

Chop all the vegetables. Heat the oil in a pan then add the vegetables. Bring to a simmer, cover and cook on low heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally. The tomatoes and bell peppers should be broken down into a pulp. If you want a smooth mother sauce you can blitz with a stick blender at this point (we didn’t bother).

Season to taste with salt and freshly-ground black pepper and add a pinch of brown sugar (this helps even out the acidity of the tomatoes). Stir well then take off the heat. Ladle into sterilized jar that have been wormed in the oven. Seal immediately then store in a cool, dark, cupboard. Unopened they will last for a few months. Once opened store in the refrigerator.

Alternately divide into 200ml pots and freeze. One such pot should be enough for a batch of jollof rice. This is a delicious sauce anyway (try dipping some bread in it and enjoying with a crisp white) and it also cuts down on the chopping when making a stew or a jollof rice base. Marry this with par-boiled rice and you reduce your cooking time appreciably.