Ingredients: (serves 6-8)

2 x Onions

8 x Fresh Tomatoes or ( 2 x 400g Tinned)

4 x tbsp Sunflower Oil

2 x Cloves of garlic

1 x tsp Dried chillies (optional)

2 x tsp Raw cane sugar

1kg Fresh Pumpkin Leaves or ( 150g dried)

100g Raw unsalted peanuts or ( 3 x tsp peanut/almond butter)

Sea Salt and Pepper

Method and Cooking time (25 - 35 mins)

Place sunflower oil in large saucepan on medium heat. Finely chop the onions and begin to fry until translucent. Add garlic and chillies (optional) and lightly season. Next grind the nuts until you have a fine powder. Roll pumpkin leaves together, finely chop and set both aside.

Next add chopped tomatoes and a cup of water to the pan and simmer for 5 mins. Then add pumpkin leaves and cook for another 20 - 30 mins. Last 5 mins of cooking, add ground nuts or peanut/almond butter, stir and simmer for 1-2 mins and serve.

This is my all time favourite vegetable dish. It's a recipe which is cooked across a number of Southern African countries. The young, tender pumpkin leaves are sort after for this recipe (in Malawi sweet potatoes leaves are also used). The larger leaves need to be deveined and cooked a little longer. A great substitute would be black/curly kale or spinach. Though it doesn't carry that authentic light smokey flavour and bite that pumpkin leaves have.

Ingredients: (serves 2-4)

Safou

Courgette

Butternut

Garlic

Fresh rosemay

Sweet potatos

Soy sauce

Olive oil

Salt

Pepper

Method & Cooking time mins 20-30 mins

Break up a garlic and add the cloves with the outer skin still on. Add fresh rosemary and dash of olive oil, season with salt and pepper.

Place in the oven to start roasting. Meanwhile prepare the safou. Wash and make 4 light vertical cuts from top to bottom (as if making 4 segments). Season with a splash of soy sauce and add to the roasted veggies after 10 mins. Roast for a further 20-30 mins ! Serve with a side salad and ginger & lime vinaigrette !

© Malcolm Riley

Safou (Dacryodes edulis)

In west and central Africa, Safou (sometimes call African plum on account of its purple colour) is probably the most important out of many indigenous fruits in the local markets and cuisine.

It is perhaps best described as being like the combination of an avocado and an olive and typically it is roasted and eaten as a vegetable.

It is highly nutritious and widely grown in homegardens and in cocoa fields. Like all other wild fruits around the tropics, there is huge tree-to-tree variation in fruit size, colour, taste, and nutrient contents.

Local markets recognize this variation and so to improve the potential for poor smallholder farmers to increase their income from Safou,

I have been involved in working with farmers to help them to simply and rapidly develop cultivated varieties and so to improve their own lives.

To learn more about this you can read my book “Living with the Trees of Life” published by CABI in 2012.

With Malcolm (The African Chef), I am discussing ways that we can further help local people in Cameroon to store and use Safou fruits so that it’s nutritional and poverty-alleviating benefits can be further enhanced.

Dr Roger Leakey

International Tree Foundation

(Click links for more information)

Ingredients: (serves 2)

Great starter or light lunch and accompaniment for dinner.

Large Gem Lettuce

1x small red onion or spring onion

1/4 of Cucumber

1/2 Green pepper

Handful of Coriander

2 x Teaspoons Moringa Chilli Relish (per wrap)

1 x Teaspoon of crème fresh mixed with a touch of horseradish sauce and zest of lemon or a teaspoon of mayonnaise or sour cream works well.

Filling suggestions:

Chicken Goujons, seasoned chicken breasts/ thighs or red kidney beans.

Method & Prep time mins 10 -20 mins

Heat goujons or grill Chicken thighs when cooked chop into bite size chunks and put aside .Wash the salad ingredients and cut into strips.

Spread each lettuce leaf with Moringa and crème fresh, sprinkle finely chopped onion, strips of pepper and cucumber. Add the finely chopped gougens, chicken thighs or kidney beans, finish off with coriander and cracked black pepper. Enjoy !

© Malcolm Riley

Ingredients: Serves 6-7

Method: 

Ingredients: Serves 6-7

600g Cream cheese
40g Butter
120g Digestives (Wholemeal plain biscuits)
60g Golden granulated sugar
40g Baobab fruit powder
35ml Amarula Cream
Juice of half a lemon
20cm flan tin (with loose base)

1.Melt the butter over a low heat. Crush the biscuits to form fine crumbs and add to the melted butter. Once blended together, press the mixture into the base of the greased flan tin.

2.Mix together the cream cheese, sugar, baobab powder and amarula cream until the consistency is smooth. Squeeze the juice from half a lemon and mix thoroughly.

3.Carefully spoon the mixture onto the pressed breadcrumbs and spread evenly across the dish.

4.Cover the flan tin with foil and refrigerate for 2-3 hours. (Optional finish with a thinly spread layer of passion fruit)

5.Decorate the top of the cake with Baobab fruits – only joking

adding Amarula Cream which works really well, a real taste sensation!

African superfoods gastronomy cuisine Read more form CNN's article - African superfoods gastronomy cuisine .

© Malcolm Riley