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Rosca de Reyes
Christina Morales, Caroline Lange, La Monarca Bakery
148 ratings with an average rating of 3 out of 5 stars
148
About 2 hours
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Prepare the obe ata: Working in batches if needed, combine all the obe ata ingredients except the canola oil in a blender and purée on high until smooth. The liquid from the can of tomatoes should suffice, but you can add up to ¼ cup of water if necessary to get the purée going. (You should have about 3 cups of purée.)
Heat the 2 tablespoons canola oil in a medium saucepan over medium-high. Add the purée and bring to a simmer. Reduce heat to medium, cover and simmer until the sauce is slightly reduced by about a third of its original volume, 18 to 20 minutes. (It should make about 2 cups. Obe ata can be cooled and refrigerated for up to 2 weeks, or frozen for up to 1 month.)
Prepare the rice: Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Heat the ½ cup canola oil in a large Dutch oven over medium until shimmering, about 1 minute. Add the onions and cook, stirring frequently, until softened, 6 to 8 minutes. Remove half the onions to a plate and set aside. Add the garlic and sauté until fragrant and translucent, about 2 minutes. Add the tomato paste, turmeric and smoked paprika, if using, and toast, stirring occasionally, until turmeric is fragrant and tomato paste has deepened to a dark red color, about 2 minutes.
Stir in the obe ata sauce and bring to a simmer over medium heat. The habanero oils love to disperse in the air, so you may want to turn on your stovetop fan or open a window while simmering the obe ata. Stir in the rice, thyme and bay leaf, and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the stock and cover with a lid. Transfer the pot to the oven and cook until rice is just tender, 35 minutes.
Remove the pot from the oven and let sit, covered (no peeking) for 15 minutes. Uncover, fluff the rice with a fork and stir in the reserved sautéed onions. Adjust seasoning, if necessary, and discard the thyme sprigs and bay leaf. Serve warm.
For those interested in cooking the recipe but who (like me) don't use "converted" (parboiled) rice, I suggest you could substitute 2 cups long-grain rice and 2-1/2 cups of stock.
I’ve made this three times now. My thoughts: 1) solid recipe with superior flavor and great balance. My wife is in love with this. 2) to me, a Nigerian, this doesn’t exactly taste like jollof. In facts it’s probably the least “jollof” tasting jollof I’ve ever had but it’s still delicious 3) recommend cooking on stove as opposed to oven. You will achieve the slight burn to the bottom which provides excellent flavor. I cooked it between 4-5 on electrical stove for 30 min, then left covered 10
Good recipe, but I doubt Ms. Komolafe's claim that smoked paprika substitutes for the caramelized rice that's obtained by stovetop cooking. Iranian cuisine uses caramelization for chelo rice: the delicious browned bottom crust, the "tahdig", is savory-sweet rather than smoky. I'd use a wide non-stick pan instead of the oven in step 4, and after the stock is absorbed, set the heat to low (2/10 on electric heat) and cook lid-on for 30 mins unattended.
I made it with three cups of basmati rice - didn’t change the recipe and came out great!
I've probably made this about a hundred times since this recipe was published. It has become a staple of my cooking, and one of my favorite recipes to make. I love how spicy , I love how tomato-y it is . It's just so delicious, all of it. The sweetness of the onions really work well here, I usually make more than what the recipes call for because everyone end up fishing for more onions. It's honestly a delicious dish. And I love this recipe.
The wording on the rice ingredient isn't precise: parboiled long-grain rice, basmati or jasmine rice. If I use basmati, do I parboil it? If not, reversing the sequence would be clearer: basmati, jasmine or parboiled type long-grain rice.
Raw chicken will give the rice that 'raw chicken' smell. Rice absorbs the flavors around it, so unless you want that, nah. Whenever I add chicken to a rice dish, I make sure to braise it in its own liquids first (pan, no water, medium heat) until browned. Bone-in preferably. Then I add it right after the tomatoes/peppers/spices, and reduce the heat until the chicken is coated. Then I add the liquid (broth or water), and then the rice, and cook as directed here.
I would swap the turmeric with nutmeg, then add some curry powder and thyme. Also cook on the stove! Yet to meet anyone who doesn’t like jollof rice. Whenever I have a party and serve it, some of the non-Nigerians want takeaway, the rest are to shy to ask because when I offer, it’s a resounding yes. For the Nigerians, the takeaway is a given. My point is, if you make this dish for a party, the custom is to make enough that your guests can have takeaways.
Wow. This rice is a total flavor bomb. It's like Mexican rice but full of smoky flavors and warm spices and heat and onion and garlic and ginger! Wow. Wow wow wow
My twelve year old son made this for dinner tonight to celebrate the sale of my first novel on Friday. It was about the best thing I’ve eaten in forever. Perfectly salty and tomatoey and such depth of flavor from the herbs and garlic and chicken broth. Amazing. Tomorrow I want the leftovers with some sliced avocado and a fried egg on top! We served ours with some simple lemony herbed grilled chicken thighs and an all frisée salad. I feel very feted.
Yewande Komolafe has a wonderful video on NYT IG page which demonstrates the cooking process. Regarding the use of smoked paprika, she explains that it is used to mimic the smoked effect obtained when cooking over an open fire. It is not for caramelization.
mince 2 garlic cloves and fry in step 3 in addition to sliced garlic. strip 4 sprigs of thyme of leaves and fry with tomato paste etc in step 3. 1 heaped tsp turmeric 3/4 tsp paprika 2 dry bay leaves 4 cups broth...i cooked on stove top
I've made Jollof rice for years on the stove. I can't imagine using the oven in the heat of summer.
This dish was incredible! I made it to go with the Peruvian Roasted Chicken recipe because my family loves saucy, flavorful rice with roasted chicken - swapped the habanero pepper with 1/4 teaspoon of aji amarillo paste in the obe ata to keep the flavors consistent, and it was amazing! Thanks for a great recipe.
I have cooked jollof both the traditional way and in the oven. This is, by far, my favorite way to prepare jollof. I used jasmine rice. I found the one habanero chile to be insufficient. It didn't bring the heat that traditional jollof does. All in all, this is a very good recipe.
I did this on the stove with parboiled rice, and it was amazing! So fresh and comforting and satisfying. GREAT.
Any recommendations for someone with a low heat tolerance? I'd love to learn more about Jamaican and African cuisine, but while I work to increase my spice tolerance, I find the use of habaneros and Scotch bonnets pretty restrictive. Looking online, it seems like it's hard to replicate the fruitiness of a habanero without the heat, but I'd love to hear from someone who's tried recipes like this.
This is one of my favorite recipes. It's just plain delicious--as a side, as a main, and leftover!
Love this recipe! Have made it a few times in the oven and decided to try it on the stove top. If you do - make sure you pay attention. Mine seemed to really absorb the liquid pretty quickly. It's good, has the slightly crunchy texture with the rice on the bottom of the dutch oven, but I'm also soaking the pot right now.
Love this recipe. Trying it on the stove top today. I also refer to the Obe Ata recipe a lot even if I'm not making jollof rice. I make it and freeze it similar to making homemade tomato sauce and doing the same.
Lovely recipe. Best jollof rice I’ve tasted. Thanks, Yewande
Love this recipe! I've made it several times now, it's always been fantastic. Interested to try more Nigerian recipes (pescatarian/veggie friendly maybe?) The video was super helpful, made the whole process much more accessible, thank you for that NYT and Yewande!
Hands down the my favorite NYT recipe. I make exactly as written using rinsed basmati rice. Always gets rave reviews.
So delicious! Texture and flavor were perfect. This will become a regular dish in our house and I will follow the suggestion to make batches of the obe ata to have in advance to easily make it more often. Instead of parboiled rice - three cups of basmati (rinsed) and one quart of stock worked perfectly. (Two cups seemed far too little.) The oven did create some crust - for extra I put it on the stovetop on low for a few minutes after baking and until ready to eat. Loved the result!
Delicious and easy to follow. My husband doesn't like 'hot' spices, so I roasted a poblano pepper with the onion and soaked some pasilla peppers and added these to the Obe Ata to build a little smokey flavor and to replace the habano pepper. The family liked it a lot. Next time, I'll add chicken and vegetables directly to the rice.
Fantastic! The sauce did not reduce quite to two cups and I'm glad I only used the two cups (saving the rest for another time). Exactly like the photo! (And used 3 C basmati.) Perfect!
I wonder if starting it in the oven works and then finishing it off on the stove could achieve the caramelisation people on here have identified as a key flavour. I do all my one pot rice dishes in a Dutch oven in the oven to avoid the burnt bottom effect. I may have to try it.
in step 3 “prepare the rice,” there is no mention of rice. i guess it gets added in, but that’s quite an omission!
It's the start of the rice preparation. Steps 1 and 2 are the Obe Ata that is used to coat, make the full rice dish.
I made this dish while visiting family in southern Chile. Several of the important ingredients, such as ricotta, were unavailable, so I improvised where necessary (I used queso fresco and added some whole milk, delicious). The recipe did take 2 days, so I would only make if enough time. Otherwise, this dish was an absolute hit and so delicious, and I think that’s a big part because the sauce is really rich and flavorful, and you can adapt it to your liking.
Vegetarian Times has a cookbook from a few decades ago that features Jollof Rice. It suggests stove-top cooking and the sauce is simplified and easy. It contains more vegetables because it's for vegetarians. I suggest trying that recipe, which is delicious as well as easy to make.
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