Have you ever wondered if there was more to Efo riro than just eating it with rice or ‘swallow’? Well, wonder no more. What you have here is a creation by Segun Pikuda of Café de Viande and my humble self.
For Segun, creativity is important in his business so he is always working on the next great recipe. At Café de Viande, they work with different ingredients to create great platters on their menu. I particularly enjoy their grilled foods and sweet potato wedges.
I love to promote our indigenous foods in Nigeria. I love great food that is healthy and I like to write about it. So, we decided to collaborate to create something.
We worked with three leafy vegetables: fluted pumpkin leaves, Amaranth leaves (green) and water leaves (Talinium Triangulae) for the Efo riro. Other ingredients for the Efo riro were dried shrimps, periwinkle, tomatoes, onions and pimento pepper. I prepared two types of Efo riro, one with pumpkin leaves and waterleaf; the other the Amaranth leaves. He Pan-grilled the steak and pork cuts and sautéed the orange sweet pepper, green chilli and carrots.
The bread used was the crusty baguette with a soft pillowy inside. Segun toasted the baguette with a bit of butter while wrapped in foil. This gave the baguette the perfect crunch.
When the Banh mi (sandwich) was assembled, this is what it looked like:
It was very tasty. I wasn’t sure that it would work out but it did and beautifully too. I could taste every flavor in the sandwich and together the flavors were explosive. The beef was juicy, Efo riro delicious and the sautéed pepper and carrots were on another level. I thought it was great. Segun on the other hand loved it but felt that there was something that would have made it totally explosive. Perhaps more heat to make it go Gaga? Possibly.
