Nigerian Moi Moi

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1. 1Step 1: About three hours before cooking, soak and wash the beans to remove the coat. When the entire coat has been removed, place the beans in a bowl and pour enough water to cover it. Leave to soak for three hours.
2. 2Step 2: If using eggs, cook till hard boiled, cut into small pieces and set aside. If using bone marrow, cook it with salt and Maggi / Knorr cubes and set aside the stock. If using corned beef, open the can and separate the beef into small lumps.
3. 3Step 3: Prepare the moi moi containers.
4. 4Step 4: Wash the tatashe pepper (if using it). Ensure you remove the tatashe seeds as they have a tendency to give meals a bitter taste.
5. 5Step 5: Cut the onions into pieces, grind the crayfish with a dry mill. If using the heavy duty grinder in Nigerian markets, these won't be necessary.
6. 6Step 6: Crush the stock cubes and set aside. Wash the habanero/scotch bonnet peppers and set aside.
7. 7Step 7: Blend the beans, tatashe or tomato puree, onions, crayfish, habanero pepper and ground nutmeg together with some of the water and pour the mix into a big enough bowl.
8. 8Step 8: Add the vegetable oil and the bone marrow stock (if this is what you have chosen to add to your moi moi).
9. 9Step 9: Slowly add the remaining water and stir the mixture at the same time till you get a good mix of all the ingredients.
10. 10Step 10: Add salt to taste and stir very well.
11. 11Step 11: Pad the base of a big pot, pour some water and set on the stove. The depth of the water should be at most 1 inch.
12. 12Step 12: Dish the Moi moi mix into containers of your choice, add egg/bone marrow/corned beef to each container, seal/cover and set them in the pot.
13. 13Step 13: Add as small quantity of water as possible at a time while cooking the Moi Moi so that the moi moi will not become watery when done. This is the case especially when using aluminium foil or uma leaves.
14. 14Step 14: Cook your Moi Moi for at least 1 hour before checking it. Confirm that it is done by putting a knife through it; if the knife is stained with Moi Moi paste, then the Moi Moi is not done, but if the knife just has a slight smear of Moi Moi, then it's done. Also, when you cut through the Moi Moi, the insides will be set and not watery.
15. 15Step 15: If you are cooking a few wraps of Moi Moi in a small pot on high heat, then it will only take about 45 minutes to get done while when you are cooking a large pot of Moi Moi, it will definitely take more than one hour.