Rugeiatu cook book

Time : 1 hour

Materials :


Pot 


Bowls 


Solve


Knife


Cooking spoon


Ingredients

1-2 8oz pack of frozen cassava leaf. ( Get this from an local Africa market) 

1 smoked chopped Turkey 

Raw cropped chicken 

Bonely (dry fish ) 

1/2 regular drinking cup of palm oil 

1 tea spoon black peppers

2 tea spoon salt

1 onion chopped 

1 sweet pepper

2-4 maggi 

6 quarts of water in cups 

4-6 HOT peppers 



1) Add 6 quarts of water in cups in a big cook pot than add the chicken. Boil the chickens  for about 30 minutes. ( since the chicken is raw it would be best if it bowls by itself than add the rest of the meat later. This way the rest of the mat wouldn't be too over cooked. 

2) After 30 minutes, add 1/2 tea spoon of salt and black peppers with 2 maggi. 

3) Add the turkey, dry fish 

4) Now wait for about 5-10 minutes , before adding the 1-2 8 oz pack of frozen cassava leaf ( It’s does not matter wether or not the cassava leafs are frozen. ). Cover the pot. 

5) Since in this case the cassava are frozen, wait for 10-15 before opening the pot to see wether or not the cassava leaf melt. 

6) If the cassava is melt and the cooking spoon is able to stir the soup without it being stuck through the cassava leafs, you can now add the sweet peppers, onion.

 4-6 HOT peppers. ( blend the peppers, onions and sweet peppers together before adding) 

7) Close the pot for about 15 minutes so the cassava can cook with the rest of the other things that in there and the spice that were added to it, This way the cassava leaf would have the taste of the spice. 

8) After 15 minutes is over, stir the soup and taste it, if there’s not enough spice or season add 2 more maggi to the soup, or if it needs a bit more season ass 1 more. However, if the spice and seasoning are over, add 1 cup of water, this way it would make the soup less seasoning. But if the season and spice are not too salty or less salt you are good. 

9) Now, after completing step 8, cover the soup for another 5-10minutes, in this process lower the solve a bit .

10) Open the pot and stir the soup, this will proven the soup from burning. Taste the soup again, to check if the seasoning is not too much. 

11) After tasting, add 1/2 cup of palm red to the soup, ( make sure you are careful while adding, if you are making a smaller dish than this add a smaller amount than this and it you a person that like a lot of oil in your cooking add more oil. Stir for about 20 seconds. 

12) Close the pot and leave the solve on for another 5-10 minuets so the palm oil could reach everywhere in the soup and also get the spice. 

13) After 10 minutes, open the pot and taste the soup, if you like how it taste, turn the solve off and you are now done. But if you do not like the taste of the soup, you can add more spice o add more water to take the spice out. 

14) In this case, we love the way it taste, therefore we are done cooking. 

Analysis  

Cassava leaf is a common soup that is originally from an West African country, Liberia. Many people love the taste of it and there’s so many ways you can make it. Sometimes, some people like their cassava leaf bitter, so they add a leaf to it and this leaf is call (feva leaf). It makes the cassava leaf make like a stronger taste than it usually have. Also the leaf is healthy for you, so some people like to eat it with the cassava. Cassava leaf is leafs from the Cassava that is planted, and before the cassava comes out of the ground or in a stage to ready, there’s leaf that is on the stems. 

Other things that can be added to the cassava could be processed, depending where you are living. Whenever my mother used to make this dish back in Liberia, everything in the soup were whole, because people planted them and have farms where their crops and animals would grow until it's ready to be eating. Since we are not in Africa, the chicken and turkey could be a processed animals and this can be the only “unhealthy” nutritions that is in the soup. The rest of the ingredient are offers planted unit fulling growth. We brought our ingredient from our local African market, which makes this dish expensive, even in a restaurant. The reason is, like I said before in West Africa, Liberia there isn’t a lot of chemicals or resources that able to make our crops grow faster than usually or the animals don't grow as big than it's time period so people have to wait until their products are fully ready to eat or sell.
 The African markets buy goods from business women and men who export goods to America from Africa to sell in america because most Africans don't like the way american process their products. Therefore the african food would be more expensive however it's worth it because there’s isn’t “fat” in the products its all nurture and “healthy”.  For example cassava could be cause to cure some virus in west Africa, such as chicken pots. And the cassava leafs that is growing here probably wouldn’t because they're would be chemicals added to it and in Africa there wouldn’t be.
 I Personally experience this when I had chicken pots , the raw cassava in the village when I went to go and visited my grand mother. Since we were in the village there wasn’t a doctor there so they couldn't easily give me shot or something to cure it quickly as the once in the city. The way I was cure , my grand ma would grind the raw cassava leaf  and rub it on my body and after some days it went away. If I try that with a cassava that is growing in america, it wouldn’t work because there’s other chemical being added to it therefore it change the entire health of the leaf and when people eat it it give you fat because it’s not naturally grown . 

Reflection

This unit I learned a lot about process food and whole food. Which allows me to understands the importances of healthy food and “unhealthily” food. Depending on where you live and how you are used to eating, effects your diet. Since I am used to eating mostly African food and whole food, my body doesn’t over load or gain a lot of weight over the year. However, since I started to eat junk and processed food my body started to change overtime and I felt heavy than before. Most food companies in america makes their foods with chemicals, this way they would make more money and save more time. Eating African food,  that are whole food doesn’t not helps my body to gain weight, also I would rather eat african food than most food in America. Due to my lifestyle as an american now, I sometimes go out to eat with my friends, my family and most other Africans families does not go out to eat, no matter what occasion it is. There’s always a home cooked meal and the indigents are mostly whole food depending what they are cooking. The food in america creates more obese and over weighted people , the people themselves knows that the food isn’t good for the body, however, since it is cheap and America is a hard country to live in taking care of families is hard to eat “healthy”. This make people to just keeps buying the “unhealthy” food that is surrounding them, not only that is is cheap, they grew up eating these food therefore they can not help but to eat these food on a day by day . 

Screen Shot 2013-01-15 at 9.00.11 AM
Screen Shot 2013-01-15 at 9.00.11 AM

Comments