Christmas in my country is a very special one. It's a time for merriment and jollification. Aside from the get together of family and friends, it's a time where we feast and for a long time the food code has been rice, coleslaw and chicken.
A bowl of coleslaw
Infact back then, Christmas was the only time a majority of the people eat rice in their household because rice was so expensive and not affordable for most of the masses. As time passed by, the cost of rice dropped and it became a staple in most Nigerian households. That still did not stop it from being the major meal to celebrate Christmas with.
You see, rice is such a versatile meal that you can make it in different flavours.
We have the banga rice made from palm fruit extract. For taste, we include hot peppers, A lot of onions and then, some people add up some Banga soup spice to theirs. This delicacy goes well with cow entrails (liver sauced in fried roughly blended peppers. To a go a little mile and be a little extra with the taste, some people include pieces of dried fish to theirs plus crayfish. It should be worthy to note that the English name of Banga is palm nuts.
We have coconut rice made from coconut milk. It's basically the same cooking process with Banga rice.
We have fried rice made from a variety of vegetables such as bell peppers, carrots, doing onions, cabbage, leaks and beef liver or scrambled eggs.
We have jollof rice made with the mixture of blended tomatoes, peppers, ginger, garlic and onions sauce. This combo is first fried to form Nigerian stew, before it's mixed with the rice.
Then we have white rice and Nigerian stew. In some households, they have their white rice with banga stew (still made from palm fruit extract).
The beauty of this Christmas delicacies is that one is free to do according to pocket and go with any of the rice dish that is pocket friendly. It's also not compulsory that the protein must be chicken. Beef can also serve, even fish. In recent years, since chicken has become really expensive, we have people going for beef as an alternative and it still very much served the purpose.
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