Men Can Cook 03 — Nigerian MTN Rice with Fried Plantain

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It's your favorite chef, @bossj23. Trying new recipes and food combinations is our motto. Most people won't know how delightful it is to combine different foods and eat them together. Noodles with Avocado bear. Oh my gosh. It's the best new combination I've tasted. So for today, I'll be showing you guys how to prepare peppered Nigerian MTN rice with fried plantain.

About my recipe

The name MTN Rice is gotten from the MTN sim card color we use in our phones. The SIM card is yellow, and so is the recipe. Most people call it oil rice or red oil rice. But its classic name is MTN rice while its English name is called Curry rice. Why? If curry is added to white rice, it becomes yellow in color. Back then, we did cook it with leaves for next taste, but due to the unavailability of that leaf, we use dry ingredients in its place.

MTN rice is one of the most eaten types of rice in Nigeria. It's best served hot and eaten whenever there's no food at home. It's mostly eaten by students on a daily basis because that's what's affordable and easy to prepare without needing plenty of ingredients. With your red oil, rice, salt, and Maggi, food is ready.

The brother of this food is called Jollof Rice. While MTN rice is yellow, this is red or orange depending on how it's prepared.

Ingredients

The ingredients used in preparing this meal aren't complicated. They are basic ingredients used when cooking. They aren't too expensive.

Rice	3 Cups
Red oil	2 spoons
Crayfish	2 handfuls
Maggi and Pepper	3 Cubes and 2 peppers
Onion and salt	1 onion bulb and 2 spoonfuls of salt
Dry fish	2 pieces
Dry pepper	2 spoonfuls

These are all my ingredients, and I didn't purchase any of them because I had them in my storehouse. If you want to purchase, I can spell out the individual prices of the ingredients for you.

Maggi	3 cubes, 50 naira
Rice	1 cup is 400 naira
Dry fish	200 naira per fish
Cray fish	1handfuls is 100 naira

These are the prices, and the ingredients are readily available in the open market. It's in every store in my city. You don't have to search for a store to purchase these ingredients. Now, let me tell you how it's being prepared. Get ready as I'll take your minds to see impressive cooking pictures.

Steps on how to Prepare it.

• To prepare this recipe, there are certain procedures you must carry out. I measured 3 cups of rice and washed it in running water for the starchy effect and to get dirt off the rice. I washed it to be clean and then contained it in a pot. I then added 2 jugs of water to cover the rice. After doing this, I placed it on medium heat to boil.

	Placing it on medium heat

• While waiting for the rice to boil for 20 minutes, I started arranging my ingredients and keeping them in place to be prepared. I unpacked 3 cubes of Maggi and put them on a plate. I then added my salt and ground pepper as well. I ground my Crayfish with extra pepper inside. I love it when my recipe has enough pepper in it. After this, I then washed my dry fish and cleaned it to look edible for eating, as you can see it here.

	Utensils

• My rice was half-done. I turned off the fire and brought it down to filter out the water. You're not to cook your rice to be very soft in the parboiling stage because you're parboiling the rice. I then washed it again in the filter and kept it there to drain the water out. Using that same pot, I placed it on medium heat and ensured the water was completely dried out.

• After the pot was dry, I added a jug of water this time instead of 2 and then started adding my ingredients to the water. I added everything, including salt to taste. The last ingredient I added was oil. After heating for 5 minutes and tasting that the ingredients are balanced, I added my rice into the water without adding much water to it. My rice was leveled with the water, and I ensured that I stirred it so that all the ingredients would mix with the white rice, as you can see in the pictures. I covered the pot with a lid and waited for it to dry before bringing it down from the heat.

While waiting, I had a light refreshment of two fruit combinations to increase or wet my appetite for the food that's on fire.

• While still waiting, I used another gas cylinder to fry my unripe plantain, so I'll eat both of them, hot. I peeled my plantain, sliced it in a slanted way, and then coated it with salt to taste. With my oil in a pan, I placed the sliced plantain on the pan and waited for it to have a good fry before turning it and removing it from the hot oil.

• I then presented my recipe in a stylish way with my plantain on it and had a drink with it. I had a drink of cold chocolate with sugar. The combination was just so ecstatic.

How I enjoyed my meal?

I'll share this pictorially for you guys to see.

Watch out for the video tomorrow