Ounje Aladun

“Asun”, spicy grilled goat meat was the inspiration for this. And since I didn’t have any goat meat in the freezer, I used beef with the skin on. Beef with skin on is called “Agemawo” in Yoruba. And Agemawo meat is in two forms. The hair of the cow can be removed either by burning off the hair in a whole cow after killing it or using hot water and a scraper to scrape off the hair. These different methods result in different skin texture on Agemawo meat when the beef is cut with the skin.

The roasted version results in softer beef which tends to cook faster and may have a smokey flavour. The downside is that because some butchers sometimes use kerosene to ignite the fire on the cow, the kerosene, seeps into the skin and the taste is retained on the meat. I can’t abide that so I err on the side of caution and buy the one removed with hot water. The hot water Agemawo is a little tougher to cook, the skin takes time to cook and you cook the meat for longer. So I use a pressure pot and in 12 – 15 mins my meat is done.

Recipe

Ingredients

• 1kg bite-sized beef with skin
• 2½ cups blitzed pepper mix ( red bell pepper, red habanero, add tomatoes to tone the heat down) depending on your heat tolerance,  you can decide to either use more or less habanero)
• 2 large onion. (Chop one to boil beef, slice the other for garnish)
• Salt to taste.
• 1 tsp chopped ginger (alternative ginger powder)
• 1 tsp chopped turmeric (alternative turmeric powder)
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper.
• ½ tsp Black pepper
• * ½ Garlic powder optional
• Bay leaf
• *Curry powder, dried thyme
• 1 cooking spoon vegetable oil

*asterisked items are optional

Procedure

• Cook your meat with chopped onions, salt, ginger, turmeric, bay leaf, cayenne pepper, black pepper, garlic powder, curry and thyme if you choose. Cook till tender.
• While your meat is cooking, in a wok on medium heat,(I used an earthenware dish), simmer the blitzed pepper mix with oil. Let it cook down till its liquid is well reduced.
• When the meat is cooked, add the meat stock to the pepper. Taste it and if necessary adjust seasoning accordingly and cook it down for the liquids to reduce

In the next step, you can do either of these two things.

• You can flash fry the meats and then stir them into the cooked pepper.

Or

• Stir in the meats into the cooked pepper, transfer into an oven preheated to 350°c for 20-25 mins.
• After removing from the oven stir the meats in well.

I used option 2.

Garnished with some chopped onions and any green herbs like basil, parsley, spring onions etc.

Serve with a cold refreshing drink, because this can be hot depending on how much heat is in your pepper mix, you need something cool and refreshing.