Today, we will present to you how to prepare a tomato sauce with okra. The tomato sauce will be accompanied by corn dumplings,which we commonly call ablo here.
Okra tomato sauce
We will present the ingredients: we have tomatoes, then eggplant, then the okras, then the peppers, and the Maggie cubes.
In addition, we have canned tomatoes, then peanut oil,fine salt, local potassium, potassium which we use here in Africa. Then, the herbs. Those are the ingredients.
To prepare, we will start by first putting the pot on the fire as follows, then we will add in a little oil.
we should cut there First of all, we will introduce you to all the ingredients we have: here are the tomatoes, then the eggplant, then the okra, and the peppers you see here.
In addition, here are the canned tomatoes that we will use.
Then, vegetable oil, peanut oil, then we have fine salt, and we
also have potassium which we use locally; here is the potassium.
Then, the powdered herbs that we will use. What you see here, are the corn and the corn flour, which we will use to prepare the dumplings to go along with tomato sauce. First, we will prepare the ingredients.
You start by cutting the tomatoes. There you are, I’ll cut the fresh tomatoes.
Here are more tomatoes;
can you put the tomatoes in the saucepan? Then, I will cut the okras. I first remove the ends as follows.
The two ends, I remove them like this as we don’t need them.
I remove them and then I cut them.
You can cut them like this. I can do it like this, and then I cut them in small pieces and I mince them.It’s not finished yet.
can you please put this in the saucepan, and now we will get the eggplants that I will cut.
There are different ways of cutting. We can do it in this direction. Could you please put them in the saucepan on the fire?
Meanwhile, we will add a little oil.
We will fry the tomatoes, the okras, and the eggplants. You can add a little more.
I will add the eggplant. We stir.
We will fry them for a few minutes.
I specify that we can ground the peppers a little,
We can ground them or we can hold them like this. We let them break and we put them in the sauce.
There are two possible options.
We will now let it fry for a while and we will put a can of tomatoes there. That was already cooked on the fire.
and it is not finished yet. Here is the potassium which I presented to you earlier. It is a local potassium here in Africa.
So I’ll put this in some water and we are going to pour it on top.
We cook it this way so it removes the acidity of tomatoes and the meal becomes really delicious after.
With water, the potassium softens and dissolves a little.
Then, we will pour the mixture on top. So I pour some in.You can stir a little. The reaction you see there proves that the acid is being burned.
We let it simmer a little. And then we will add it. Meanwhile,I’ll crush the peppers. I make them burst with my fingers.
Then I add them. We need to stir it up a little longer.
We can add this inside.We have to stir it a little longer.
Sometimes when the flame is a little strong, the tomato has the tendency to stick slightly
at the bottom, so you can add a little water.
we have now added all ingredients, we need to add the salt after to give the right flavor. I will add the dried herbs.They give a particular taste to the tomato sauce. The sauce is nearly ready.Now, we can add a little bit of salt as it needs a little.
We need to stir. Then, this sauce will be ready.
We will, of course, add the corn dumplings to the sauce which I presented to you.
The corn dumplings, we call them ablo in the local language.
Meanwhile, what I will do is rinse this a little,and then pour the tomato sauce inside. The tomato sauce with okra. I explain that if we make it like that the okra tends to be slightly sticky.
When we fry them slightly in oil, however, it will lose this quality.
Then, it has another appearance, especially for those who don’t like it when it gets a little sticky. Here is the sauce.
corn dumplings
We will present you the corn which will be used to prepare the ablo.
Here is the corn, the corn kernels. Wash them thoroughly and bring them to the mill.
After the mill, you bring back the flour. Here is the corn flour. Then you will divide the flour into three parts to prepare.
You take one part to make a thick paste.You let it cool, then you mix the two remaining parts with the paste that has cooled.You mix well and add a little bit of wheat flour and a little bit of baker’s yeast.
Yeast from the bakery.You mix everything and cover it. Let it stand for two hours. You let it rest for two hours and it will rise.
When the mixture has risen, you put water on the stove and then you can cook it in the Bain-Marie [definition for Bain-Marie
http://www.joyofbaking.com/other/glossaryAB.html]
with steam. You can steam cook the dough in small molds,and then you put them on the strainer placed above the water.
Let it cook above the boiling water. Cover it up, leave it for 30 minutes, and it’ll be ready after.
And then you have beautiful ablo like this.
It is the mold which gives it this shape, to these dumplings which we call ablo.
at home and that has served as food.It is very tasty actually.
We will do this little game of decoration, because this is first of all, the art of culinary.
We’re going to do it like this. It needs to come off. There you go.
And we have a plate with tomato sauce with okras.