As the winter chill sets in, food writer and supper club host Toyo Odetunde offers a vibrant culinary antidote, drawing on the sunny flavours of West Africa to lift spirits and warm the soul. Her solution comes in the form of two hearty, flavour-packed dishes: a Senegalese-inspired chicken yassa pot pie and a playful take on Nigerian stewed beans served in plantain boats.
A Fusion of Comfort and West African Flavours
Odetunde, known for her innovative fusions of West African and other global cuisines, presents these recipes as a direct challenge to the winter blues. The star of the show is a deeply flavourful pot pie, which reimagines the classic British comfort food with a Senegalese twist. The filling is inspired by chicken yassa, a beloved dish known for its caramelised onions, tangy mustard, and citrus notes.
The second dish offers a hearty and convenient take on a Nigerian staple. It transforms ewa riro – stewed beans – into a visually striking meal by serving it in roasted plantain canoes, or 'boats'. This presentation adds a playful, Latin American-inspired touch to the traditional pairing of beans and ripe plantain.
Plantain Boats with Stewed Black-Eyed Beans
This dish, which requires 25 minutes of prep and 1 hour 15 minutes of cooking to make six servings, derives its unique character from key West African ingredients. Dried prawns and red palm oil provide a signature umami depth, along with an earthy, subtly sweet flavour. It's important to note that the culinary red palm oil used here is distinct from industrial palm oils linked to deforestation.
The recipe cleverly uses two 400g tins of black-eyed beans and two 125g tins of mackerel for ease and richness. Ripe plantains, marked with large black patches, are roasted with butter or ghee until golden, then carefully split to form edible vessels for the robust bean and mackerel stew.
Chicken Yassa-Inspired Pot Pie
Designed to serve four to six people, this pie marries the nostalgic comfort of pastry with the complex, tangy-sweet flavours of Senegal. The process begins with marinating 500g of boneless, skinless chicken thighs for at least two hours in a paste of garlic, ginger, onion, scotch bonnet, and spices including paprika, mustard, and lemon juice.
The magic lies in the slow-cooked, treacly caramelised onions – three large onions are cooked down with brown sugar and allspice for about 30 minutes. Combined with the marinated chicken, stock, and briny green olives, this filling is encased in ready-made puff pastry and baked until deeply golden. The pie bakes at 220C (200C fan) for one hour, resulting in a flaky, buttery crust giving way to a soul-soothing, aromatic filling.
Bringing Global Sunshine to the British Kitchen
Both recipes demonstrate how accessible ingredients from larger supermarkets or world food stores can be used to create authentic and deeply satisfying West African flavours at home. Odetunde's approach provides a welcome burst of culinary sunshine, proving that traditional comfort food can be excitingly reinvented with global inspiration. These dishes are not just meals; they are a vibrant, flavourful strategy for seeing off the coldest days of the year.
