West Africa · Volume 03, The Gulf of Guinea
Suya
Hausa, northern Nigeria
Illustration
- Time
- 1 hour 30
- Researched
- 11 sources cited
- Reviewed
- Awaiting a reader from inside the tradition
- Cooked
- Awaiting a cook report
Suya is sold by the mai suya, and the skewered form is properly called tsire. The reason British suya tastes wrong has four causes, in order of importance, and only one of them is the grill.
- No uda. Xylopia aethiopica has a smoky, musky, resinous aroma with a bitter edge and nothing in a British spice rack replaces it. Its absence is the single biggest gap.
- The wrong peanut. Real yaji is built on kuli kuli: roasted groundnuts ground, pressed to remove the oil, shaped and deep-fried until brown and dry. Without de-oiling you get a paste, not a powder, and a paste will not adhere as a dry coating or survive a grill. Raw peanut powder is sweet and damp; kuli kuli is toasty and dry.
- Under-ginger. Yaji is roughly one to one kuli kuli to ground ginger by volume. It is a ginger spice as much as a chilli one.
- The wrong cut. Thin slices threaded flat, not kebab cubes.
As tradition built it
Tsire, with yaji from scratch
Serves 4 · 30 minutes, plus 1 hour freezing
Ingredients
Yaji, makes about 190g
- 110g kuli kuli, blitzed coarse (5 tbsp)
- 75g ground ginger (5 tbsp)
- 6g cayenne pepper flakes (2 tbsp)
- 10 strands uda, toasted and ground, seeds discarded
- 1 tsp garlic powder, ½ tsp onion powder
- ½ tsp fine salt
To grill
- 600g beef sirloin or rump
- 4 tbsp groundnut oil
- to serve Raw onion, tomato, lime, to serve
Method
- Freeze the beef for an hour until firm but not solid, then slice it 3mm thin across the grain, in the largest sheets you can manage.
- Combine the yaji. Keep half back in a bowl for the table: raw yaji served alongside is part of the dish, not a garnish.
- Thread the slices flat onto skewers, concertina style. Dust generously with yaji, then douse with oil and dust again.
- Grill over the hottest wood or charcoal fire you can build, close to the coals, turning constantly. Two to three minutes total. Re-dust with yaji as it cooks.
- Slice off the skewers into bite-sized pieces. Serve on paper with sliced raw onion, tomato, more yaji and lime.
What a modern chef changes
Aged sirloin suya, bone marrow emulsion
Rungs 06, 07, 09, 13 · Serves 4
Method
- Age it. Sit a whole 900g sirloin uncovered on a rack in the coldest part of the fridge for five days. It will darken and dry at the surface. Trim the dried face off before slicing. The interior is now measurably more savoury and it will crust far better.
- Toast the yaji spices separately. Uda, a little uziza seed and half a teaspoon of alligator pepper, each toasted alone for five to six minutes over low-medium heat, cooled completely, then ground crumbly rather than fine. Blend with fresh-blitzed kuli kuli and ground ginger. Make it the same day you cook.
- Bone marrow emulsion. Roast 4 marrow bones at 200°C for 20 minutes, scrape out about 100g of marrow, and blend hot with 1 egg yolk, 1 tsp Dijon, 1 tsp lime juice and a pinch of yaji until it emulsifies to a loose, glossy sauce. Keep it just warm; it will split if you chill and reheat it.
- Grill. Egg open, direct, dome as hot as it will run, grate raised on fire bricks so the meat sits 8 to 10cm from the coals. Lumpwood, never briquettes. Ninety seconds a side, turning constantly. You want the groundnut in the spice to toast rather than steam.
- Plate it as a restaurant would. Marrow emulsion smeared underneath. Suya over. Raw yaji dusted on at the last second so it hits the tongue first. Then the two things a takeaway never gives you: quick-pickled red onion (sliced, 15 minutes in lime juice and salt) and a scattering of dried scotch bonnet flakes. Crisp, acid, smoke, fat, heat.
Notes
Akoko serve beef tongue slow-cooked for 18 hours, then grilled with a suya marinade and sauced with kuli kuli, grains of paradise and uda. The principle is the separation of the long cook from the finishing step. Here it is applied to a cut that suits the Egg.