This savoury plantain cake can be enjoyed as breakfast, lunch, as a side or afters after meals.
DIY Recipes: How to make Ofam (Spicy Plantain Cake)
Ofam is basically a spicy ripe plantain cake. It's a great way of using overripe plantains which would soak up too much oil when fried or will be too soft when boiled.
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Ingredients
2 ripe plantain (over-ripened)
½ medium-size red onion (shallot is a great option)
Tiny piece of Kpakposhito or scotch bonnet pepper (to your taste)
20g Fresh ginger (about thumb size or to your taste)
4 Cloves
1 Small Calabash Nutmeg
1 cup Self Raising Flour
1 Tsp Crayfish Powder or 1 Maggie shrimp
½ Tsp Salt
1 Tsp Baking Powder
1 - 3 Tbsp Palm Oil
Loaf tin
Method
Set the oven to 200oC. Grease a loaf pan with palm oil.
Peel and cut up the onion and ginger. Place in a food processor or blender, traditionally it is grinded in an earthenware mortar shown in the picture. If you own a mortar and pestle it is better to use it as the flavour and texture you get from it is lovely. Add the scotch bonnet pepper and cloves and grind/blend the mixture until smooth.
Now add the salt and Crayfish or Maggie shrimp to taste.
Peel the plantains and cut them up into pieces. I have shown below the different stages of ripeness you can use, either one gives a good result. Add to the onion mixture and grind/blend together. Ideally, you want a lumpy thick mixture. Over blending gives a very smooth runny mixture. The earthenware mortar or a food processor is great to give a good texture.
Add the flour and mix well.
Now add the palm oil and stir in well. I used 2 tbsp of palm oil here. But you can reduce or increase it to 3tbsp. The palm oil makes the Ofam moist.
Add the baking powder and mix until well incorporated.
Pour into the prepared loaf tin. Place it in the oven to bake.
When it is thoroughly baked, a skewer inserted into the cake will come out clean.
Remove from the oven and let it cool down before removing from the loaf tin.
Serve the ofam with boiled eggs and nuts.
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