Koki corn

Koki Corn is a very popular side dish in Cameroon, similar to fresh Mexican tamales. It’s primarily made up of fresh corn, palm oil and spinach – a sweet and savoury delight! It’s cooked by wrapping it in banana leaves or foil and steamed to perfection, a great meal on its own or as sides to your favourite meal.

In Cameroon, this dish is very popular especially in the raining season because of the abundance of fresh corn. Fresh corn in parts of Africa is higher in starch and a lot more coarse in texture compared to corn grown in Europe /America. In Africa, it’s commonly known as white corn or maize.

Because of this, Africans who have migrated to western countries have found that adding cornmeal – coarse flour, ground from dried maize (corn) –  to the ground corn gives it a similar texture to the traditional recipe. How clever is that?!

It’s exciting to see West African meals that are vegetarian and vegan friendly. I did take out the palm oil in this recipe to make it more sustainable. The palm oil is mainly there to give it a deeper yellow colour and I felt that was easily achieved by using tomato paste instead.

What I love about Koki Corn is that it’s an excellent base recipe. You can easily make it your own! Add beans in for extra protein or add chopped veggies for texture and added colour. It’s also a great meal prep item to make for the week.

Koki Corn

Vegan | gluten-free

Prep time: 20 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes plus cooling

Total time: 55 minutes

Ingredients

Stage 1

•       500g tinned / frozen sweetcorn

•      1 large onion – roughly chopped

•      1/2 Scotch bonnet

•      1 maggie cube

•      3 cloves garlic

•       1 tsp salt

Stage 2

•      2 tsp tomato paste

•       200g cornmeal

•       120g fresh spinach

Method:

1.     Pulse (dont fully blend) all of stage 1 together. You want the mixture to be smooth, with some pieces of sweetcorn still visible. This will give it added texture.

2.     Pour the pulsed mixture into a large bowl. Add the 200g of cornmeal and tomato paste into the mixture and mix thoroughly with a wooden spoon. Then add the fresh spinach and mix through.

3.     Next, prep the aluminium foil and baking parchment. Cut your aluminium foil to 30cm in length and your baking parchment to 20cm. Then place your baking parchment on top of your foil.

4.     Place 150g of the corn mixture at one end of the layered sheets, then carefully roll the mixture into a sausage shape and press the sides down to ensure the mixture doesn’t run out. Then fold the sides in to seal twice. Repeat the process until the mixture runs out.

5.     Place the wrapped up Koki Corn into a steamer with a lid and steam for 35 minutes. If you don’t have a steamer, you can use a large pot with about 20cm of water in it. Place your wrapped Koki Corn into a colander and put it all on top of the pan, with a lid on to trap most of the steam in. The Koki Corn should not come in contact with the water, to avoid it getting soggy.

6.    Serve on its own as a snack or as part of a meal. I like to eat it with boiled plantain and jollof rice.