Yam Recipes and How To Make Tomato sauce For Yam

There are several yam recipes eaten in Nigeria and I want to talk about a few of them on this page as well as a comprehensive article on making tomato/vegetable sauce for yam, one of the major ways to eat yam in Nigeria.

I am a Nigerian and over the years I have made and eaten close to ten different yam recipes of which porridge yam is the most popular and easiest to make. As a little boy I remember having porridge yam for lunch almost every afternoon, my dad was a farmer so we had farm products at our disposal, I am talking about events that occurred over twenty years ago in my village house.

I grew up in the rural area where we produce most of the foods and buy just very little from the market. For porridge yam almost every ingredient is gotten straight from the farm, so it was the most simple to make yam recipe in the rural area, especially if your dad is a farmer.

another popular yam recipe in Nigeria is 'yam pepper soup', this recipe is likely the most expensive of all because of the use of catfish. It is more popular in the urban areas, it is served in most Nigerian major restaurants and eateries.

Another recipe for yam is what the Igbo tribe of Nigeria call "Ji mmanu", this is white boiled yam that is served alongside a very delicious sauce that is made with palm oil, fresh pepper and another native ingredients called "ugba", we also boil white yams and serve with tomato sauce. I will be talking about this recipe comprehensively below, all the ingredients that are used for it as well as how to get them.

Here is how I make tomato sauce in my home, this sauce could be served with yam, cooked beans and even white boiled rice.

The ingredients below would make tomato sauce that would serve four to five people, you can increase the quantity of ingredients if you are looking to serve a larger audience.

Ingrediets For Tomato Sauce.

15 balls of tomato
Fresh peppers
Maggi cubes (Seasoning)
2 bulbs of onions
Vegetables (optional)
Vegetable oil (10cl)
Salt to taste.
Spices - curry, thyme, nutmeg (optional)

The first step would be the preparation of all the necessary ingredients, I like to cut the fresh tomato with a kitchen knife, you can also grind but I prefer to cut manually as this would give me a very delicious looking tomato sauce at the end of the day.

Cut the vegetables also and set side in a different bowl.

Then set the frying pan in the burner and start the cooking process, add about 10cl of vegetable oil once the frying pan is heated, allow the oil to heat at least 90 seconds before adding the sliced onions/tomatoes.

Allow the tomatoes to cook for eight to ten minutes while stirring occasionally to avoid burning. Cook and stir till the tomato boils alone on oil and all the water is dried. At this point you can add all the other ingredient - maggi cubes, salt and any or all of the spices if you chose to use them.

You can also add vegetables, I use fluted pumpkin for tomato sauce. Allow to cook for another three minutes and you just made a delicious pot of tomato sauce, go ahead and serve with white boiled yam, this is a very delicious yam recipe in Nigerian.

We eat this recipe at least once in every week in our Lagos home.