Sunday 1 April 2012

Moju magic

I love spicy food. I have been asked often why I eat food as spicy as I do. I don't know why. But then I do come from an island that was colonized by the British partly for its spices. So I guess we people have a spice gene that needs satiating. One of my favorite foods from the good old homeland is moju. I must admit that until I met my beautiful author friend I didn't know what it was called. She and her husband can cook up a storm. I have been fortunate enough to have tasted their's and my friend's mother's cooking. Moju was a regular dish on their menus.

I tried cooking moju from recipes that I found in books, the internet, word of mouth...nothing worked. It just did not taste as good. In my desperation to simulate the sweetness of the dish I even tried using dates. Sometimes it is just simple ingredients, as I discovered when I read through a fool proof recipe.

I asked my dear friend if she had a recipe that she could share. It is not that she would not share it with me, but what I have found is that most brilliant cooks do not have recipes for foods like this. Especially one that someone as anal as I could follow. But my lovely friend's mother did! Or perhaps she painstakingly went through it in her head to give me ingredients and quantities. I am convinced that is what happened. Thank you Aunty. I wanted to cook it for the Christmas lunch we were having last year, but it never happened. I finally got around to it late last week.

I started work by assembling all the ingredients. Something I don't always do, but I wanted to do the recipe justice.

All prepped, nothing was left to chance, down to the two piece of 1" rampe

I added only what was called for. I did panic a bit when there was no quantity listed for the small red onions and capsicum, but it turned out okay, I think...

If those aren't pretty colours...

And Aunty W, you are my hero! As my Offspring would say, it was um um um :).

Moju a la Aunty W

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