If you've ever eaten at a restaurant that serves West African cuisine, then you know how delicious jollof rice is. This rice is a staple at meals in countries such as Liberia, Ghana, Senegal and Nigeria. If you are not near an African restaurant, then you can make this delicious rice at home. This recipe is aimed at vegans. Therefore, the traditional chicken stock will be swapped out with vegetable stock.

The only consideration when it comes to making this recipe is that you might want to order African style curry online or see if a local specialty foods store carries it. Curry is a generic, catchall term that people use, but it actually has substantial regional differences. Curry is a mixture of spices, but those spices differ depending on region. For instance, a Thai green curry sauce would not have the same "curry" powder that you find in a Punjab dish, and, likewise, the curry that you use in West African cuisine should come from a curry powder made for the African community.  

Ingredients:

4 Cups Vegetable Stock

2 Cups Of White Rice (long grain, not basmati)

1 Red Bell Pepper-Diced

1 Diced Onion-Diced

½ Teaspoon Grated Ginger

1 Scotch Bonnet Pepper-Minced*

2 Medium Tomatoes-Diced

2 Teaspoons African Style Curry Powder

¼ Cup Canola Oil

* These peppers are very hot, much hotter than even Jalapenos. For comparison, Scotch Bonnet peppers rate anywhere from 100k to 350k on the Scoville scale, whereas Jalapenos rate around 3.5K to 10k. When handling these peppers, you might want to wear latex gloves.  This way you can take the gloves off and toss them when you're done instead of scrubbing your hands to rid your skin of any oil from the pepper.

Recipe

Saute the onions in the canola oil until they are golden. Next, add the diced tomatoes, pepper, ginger, and curry powder. Let it continue to cook until the tomatoes have cooked down into a thick sauce.

While the tomato is stewing, rinse the rice under cold water to remove some of the starch. Let it dry.

When the stew looks thick, but still has some liquid, add the rice and stir it around until it is completely mixed together. Once it has been thoroughly mixed, add the vegetable stock. Cover it and let it cook on low heat for around 40 minutes.

Check on the rice once at around the half hour point to see if it is still soupy. If there is too much liquid, then you should leave the cover off and allow the moisture to evaporate. If it is not too runny, cover it again for the remaining cook-time.

When the rice is done, serve it with slices of fresh tomato and raw onion.