Masara and Minced Beef Recipe

I have always thought that Corned beef, or corn beef as most Nigerians call it, was made of corn and beef. I never could find the corn in the canned product generally used for sandwiches or stew.  So I thought maybe the corn was corn flour or some other product related to corn. But guess what, corned beef has nothing to do with maize. It is simply the treatment of beef with coarse salt or large grains of rock salt also known as ‘corn salt’. The beef is then slowly cooked until it is tender. Anyway this was my inspiration for Masara and Minced Beef

I decided to interpret the words corn( masara) and beef in my own way and this was a good idea when the dish was done. I used crushed corn which is normally used for tuwon Masara. The millers in the market will do this easily for you.  If you have a strong food processor at home then you can easily use this to crush the corn. I will recommend then that you sieve the corn to get the coarse grit  or you can use Maize grit for this dish.

Cereal based carbs like corn are always better for the digestive system as you need little release of insulin per time to breakdown these carbs. The root carbs like yam and Eba have bigger requirements for insulin and so it’s more tasking on the system. So you see why you should go more for cereal carbs.

For this dish you can actually replace the crushed corn with crushed wheat or couscous.

Enjoy!

 

Recipe for Masara and Minced Beef.

Ingredients

1/2 cup crush Corn

1 table spoon butter

1 1/2 cups minced Beef

1/2 whole Onion (chopped)

2 medium size Tomato

2 pieces Scotch Bonnet Pepper

Pinch Thyme

2 cloves Garlic

2 tablespoon water

1 teaspoon chopped Ginger

Beef Seasoning cube for the beef

Chicken seasoning cube to boil the corn

1 cooking spoon Vegetable oil or Olive oil

Salt to taste

How to prepare Masara and Minced Beef ?

1. First of all, rinse and steam corn in water seasoned with chicken seasoning and salt. Cook for about 1 1/2 hours till very soft. Cooking with pressure cooker speeds up the process. When corn is soft strain off most of the water and add the butter. The reason for keeping some water in the corn is to retain the soft texture as corn hardens quite quickly when cold.
2. Season the minced meat with minced garlic, half of the chopped onion, beef seasoning, thyme and salt. Knead all the seasoning well into the meat with about 2 tablespoons water and set aside for about 30 minutes
3. Heat the oil, fry the remaining onion and ginger. Add the minced meat and keep stirring to reduce the lumps to small sizes. Lower the heat and cover to cook for about 10 minutes. Taste and correct for seasoning and salt. The beef will get out its liquid, so allow the liquid to almost dry up. Pour in the corn and mix and allow to cook for about 5 more minutes
4. To conclude, serve warm