Jollof from the Tomb Raider Cookbook
The next dish I made from Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide was Jollof, a dish of rice and vegetables themed around Ghana, which Lara Croft explores in Tomb Raider: Legend. Although Jollof is not mentioned or consumed in Legend, it’s an important dish in the cuisine of Ghana. In fact, it’s the source of a friendly rivalry with Nigeria that started in the 2010s; both countries claim their version is the best. I can’t speak for the Nigerian jollof, but I’d like to try it at some point. For now, this is the time I made Ghanaian Jollof from the Tomb Raider Cookbook.
Jollof, at least this particular recipe, reminds me a lot of arroz con pollo, another chicken and rice dish cooked in one pot from Latin America. I’m quite fond of America’s Test Kitchen’s recipe for that, but I digress. Jollof can be made with beef, goat or chicken; the cookbook’s uses chicken, as well as basmati rice and spices. Goat might be difficult to get depending on where you are in the world.
As with the Poc Chuc, I was making this for people and had to concede the Scotch Bonnet or habanero pepper that the recipe calls for. Even though you take the ribs and seeds out, and I would have done so anyway, they said it would be too spicy, and you can’t buy individual Scotch Bonnet or habanero peppers, only packs of them in bulk. So, a jalapeno it was.
To make this Jollof, you build flavor up in one pot (a Dutch oven in my case) by searing and cooking your chicken through, then cooking your vegetables in the fat, before adding the rice and liquid and letting it cook undisturbed for a good while until the liquid is absorbed and the rice is fully cooked. I chose to put the chicken atop the rice in the pot as it cooked to ensure it stayed warm, and in case it wasn’t fully cooked, to rectify that. Since it uses chicken thighs, as every braise should in my humble opinion, I wasn’t worried they would dry out.
The meal went down very well. It had the right amount of spice even without the habanero. The thing is, there will be plenty of rice leftover, so I froze it to thaw and fry at a later point with more chicken thighs. One day I would like to cook with a habanero. I can take the heat.
If you want to make this recipe for Jollof yourself, you can find it in Tomb Raider: The Official Cookbook and Travel Guide. Further reading on the history of Jollof can be found on Okh Eshivar, a blog and official Tomb Raider fansite, here. If any of you are Ghanaian or Nigerian, I’d be interested to hear whether you found this recipe authentic or not.
