Plantain

As tradition built it

Kelewele

Serves 4 as a snack · 30 minutes

Ingredients

• 3 plantains, yellow with heavy black spotting
• 2 tbsp fresh ginger, grated (be generous)
• 1 small onion, grated or puréed
• 1 tsp cayenne, or 2 fresh chillies
• 2 garlic cloves, crushed
• ½ tsp calabash nutmeg (ehuru), ground
• ½ tsp hwentia (grains of Selim), ground
• ½ tsp anise seed, ground
• 1 tsp salt, 1 tsp black pepper
• for frying Neutral oil, to fry

Method

1. Cut the plantain into 2cm cubes or thick diagonal slices.
2. Mix the spice paste and toss the plantain through it. Rest 10 to 15 minutes at room temperature. Long enough to season, short enough that the salt does not draw out too much water.
3. Heat the oil to 175°C and check it with a thermometer. Cooler and it goes greasy; hotter and it burns outside while staying raw inside.
4. Fry in small batches, four to six minutes, until deep golden with crisp edges. Crowding the pan drops the temperature and steams it.
5. Drain and eat immediately, hot, from paper, with roasted groundnuts scattered over.

Notes

Do not skip the anise. The liquorice note against sweet plantain and ginger heat is precisely what separates kelewele from every other fried plantain in West Africa.

What a modern chef changes

Plantain, smoked scotch bonnet, raspberry

Rungs 07, 09, 10, 12 · Serves 4

Method

1. The pickle. Warm 200ml water with 60g honey, 2 bruised uda pods, half a cracked ehuru and a pinch of dried lavender. Cool completely. Steep batons of stage-four plantain for 20 minutes, then drain and dry thoroughly on a cloth.
2. The four-flour coat. Equal parts polenta, sorghum flour, rice flour and tapioca starch, with a pinch of ground cloves and smoked paprika. Each flour is doing a different job: rice and tapioca give glassy brittleness and low oil uptake, polenta gives granular bite, sorghum gives colour and toasted flavour. Dredge the plantain heavily and fry at 180°C for three to four minutes.
3. The smoked scotch bonnet oil. Grill 6 scotch bonnets and 3 shallots on the Egg until blackened and completely soft. This is the step everything hangs on. Blend with 200ml groundnut oil, stand for an hour, strain through muslin.
4. The emulsion. Blend 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp Dijon, ½ tsp smoked paprika and ½ tsp chipotle, then trickle in 150ml of the smoked chilli oil as you would for mayonnaise. The heat now arrives coated in fat, which both prolongs it and buffers it.
5. The raspberry salt. Dehydrate 100g raspberries until brittle (or use freeze-dried), then blitz with ½ tsp ground cloves, 1 tsp smoked paprika, ½ tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp dried scotch bonnet flakes and 1 tsp flaky salt. Store dry and dust on at the very last second.
6. Serve as the first thing anyone eats, and make it the spiciest thing on the table. That is Ikoyi's actual sequencing choice and it is deliberate.

Notes

Ikoyi's opening course, and the best single demonstration of the technique ladder in one bite. The restaurant version has 36 components. This is the same architecture at four. Chan's own account of where the idea came from: tempura of calves' brains dusted in strawberry powder at Le Châteaubriand in Paris. "Using dried fruit as a seasoning was shocking and brilliant."

Why the raspberry is not a gimmick. The plantain is bland starch. The raspberry supplies volatile fruit acid without water, so it seasons the crust without softening it. The emulsion delivers capsaicin in fat, so the heat is even and long rather than sharp and short. The smoke supplies bass notes fruit cannot. Four elements, four distinct jobs, no decoration anywhere.