Nigerian tomato stew is one of the most popular Nigerian food recipes, it is easy to make and I would include this recipe on my list of “easy Nigerian recipes”,
Reason for this would be that the ingredients needed could be found in almost every part of the world and almost anybody can put up this stew in less than 90 minutes.
Recently I also made a video about tomato stew and I think you are going to love it. You can find it at the bottom of this page.
What you have above is a large bowl of tomato stew, every thing you read below is exactly how I made this stew.
I promised to take you through the guide on how to lose the sour taste of tomatoes easily. Most people end up with tomato stew that has soured taste, it is a very common mistake that can easily be avoided. I am going to show you how to eliminate that taste, at least the way I go about it.
Ingredients For Making Nigerian Tomato stew (like I always say, these ingredients could be doubled or reduced depending on the number of people you are looking to feed and their stomach size).
Ingredients | Serving 6×2
2kg Meat of choice (fresh chicken, goat meat, turkey or beef)
Ground tomatoes – 1500ml
Ground Fresh Red Pepper – 50-100ml
1 cup of sliced onions
Teaspoon of ground nutmeg
teaspoon each of curry and thyme.
Vegetable (optional)(curry leaves, pumpkin leaves etc)
Vegetable oil – 400ml
stock cubes – 3
Crayfish – 2 tablespoons (optional)
Salt to taste.
The image above is that of fresh tomatoes, pre-cooked goat meat, curry leaves, peppers, and about 400ml of oil
STEP1
Wash the tomatoes and blend alongside the fresh pepper, also blend the crayfish alongside the nutmeg seed (1).
Wash the meat (Goatmeat in my case) and parboil with three stock cubes, a teaspoon of salt, teaspoon each of curry and thyme, a teaspoon of kitchen glory beef seasoning and half cup of sliced onions (I like to use lots of ingredients while parboiling the meat and then use little or none while making the real foods, this practice is necessary if you want to end up with very tasty meats. Beside you can then use the meat stock [water from the meat] for the main cooking.
Cook until the meat is soft enough for consumption
STEP 2
Most times I chose to fry the tomatoes in a frying pan separately and then add it to the cooked meat in the pot.
Slice the onion and set your frying pan on heat, add about 400ml of vegetable oil. Add the sliced onions and fry for about 2 minutes to release the scent into the oil then pour in the tomatoes and fry (stirring occasionally to avoid burning).
stir and allow to simmer for two minutes after adding the vegetables.
This is just where most people miss it, have you made a tomato stew with sour taste? Something that tasted less than what you eat at the restaurants? You can correct that now.
The secret to loosing the sour taste is just by frying with lots of oil (which could be reduced after frying) and then the use of onions. Then you have to keep stiring for the next 20-30 minute, you dont wanna end up with burned tomato stew.
Fry till the tomatoes boils in oil alone. Then you can transfer the pre-cooked meat and add the spices, add extra stock cube (optional), add the ground crayfish/nutmeg and allow to cook ten minutes before adding the vegetable (optional and you are done with the preparation of tomato stew.
This is how to make tomato stew, it could be served as you see below or with yam, beans, I even eat bread and stew often – it is delicious.
Here is an old video for making Nigerian tomato stew, follow this step by step video guide I suppose it would give you a visual image of all the things I said above.
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Learn more about other Nigerian stew Recipes, you can start with Nigerian Banga tew (ofe akwu)
Compare Tomato Stew & All Nigerian Foods
How To Prepare Yam Sauce
How To Make Yoruba Foods
How to Make River state Native Soup
Comments
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September 10, 2017
Hmmmm what a coincidence but fortunate one ma. Having dz probs dt baffle me(sour stew). Now I got it. Thanks for all the contributions.
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December 22, 2017
Christmas is a few days away and I am alone in the house with all the necessary ingredients and not knowing what to do I just stumbled on your instructions. Thanks indeed, you have made my day.
God bless. Merry Christmas to everyone and a happy and prosperous new year. -
December 24, 2017
It’s an amazing article. This website has lots of useful things, it helped me in many ways.
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December 29, 2017
It’s an amazing post. This website is loaded with lots of interesting things, it really helped me in many ways.
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May 18, 2018
Hello
Love your blog. I too have issues with sour taste of the stew. My mother is a great cook and I seem to be missing something.My mother’s method is to:
1. Pour oil into pot and switch gas on
2. Blend peeled (tinned) tomatoes, onions, tatashe and ata rodo (quantity as needed)
3. When blended she adds to the pot containing oil
4. She then adds the seasonings
5. She had preboiled the meat with seasoning etc and adds to stew when it is timeI try to follow this but fail. I know it is down to seasoning and also the tomato puree. I don’t use it but will now try. Can you add the puree to the pot once number 3 above has been carried out? I think this is what my mother does.
My seasoning for the stew needs to be better and I going with more variety like knorr, curry power (Caribbean) etc. The chicken seasoning is a lot better.
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January 14, 2019
Thank you so much sister chy
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March 25, 2019
I followed every step in preparing tomato stew… Hmmmm! The taste is out of space. Thanks ma
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April 21, 2019
This is nice. Now i can prove to my friends that a boy can be good in the kitchen.
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July 7, 2019
Wow I tried the stew and it was very nice my friends loved it so much
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July 14, 2019
After frying the tomatoes and everything, should we still add water to it
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September 16, 2019
thanks for the recipes
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October 5, 2019
Guess what!! My stew changed a better taste.
it’s now delicious like never before.
Thanks and keep showing me more😍