Ep 222: Nabil Abdulrashid

James, huge news from the world of off-menu and indeed the world of the world.

Yes.

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The show will be on Monday, the 16th of March.

It's going to be a tasting menu, a returning guest coming back, receiving the menu of another previous guest.

Those shows have been a lot of fun.

We cannot wait to do them live.

Who will we pull out of our little magic bag?

You'll have to come along on the 16th of March to find out.

If I'm correct in thinking, presale tickets go on pre-sale on the 10th of September.

Pre-sale tickets are 10th of September at 10 a.m.

And then the general sale is 12th of September at 10 a.m.

So if you miss out on the pre-sale, don't forget general sale is only two days later.

The day in between is for reflecting.

Get your tickets from royalalberthall.com Hall.com or offmenupodcast.co.uk.

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Welcome to the off-menu podcast, chopping up the melon of the internet and adding it to the fruit salad.

That's a gamble.

My name is James A.

Caster.

We own a dream restaurant.

We're still getting used to that.

Second one.

Oh,

We own a dream restaurant.

And every week we invite a guest in to our dream restaurant and we ask them their favor ever.

Start a main course side dish, dessert, drink, not in that order.

And

I'm all over the place.

Oh, dear me.

This week, our guest is...

Nabil Abdul Rasheed.

Nabil Abdul Rasheed, an absolutely fantastic comedian who I gigged with many years ago and thought, this guy's great.

And he's gone on to absolutely huge things.

He did very well on Britain's Got Talent.

had the judges roaring with laughter yeah james has read that off a screen uh he's also done celebrity master chef things like that but he is he's just an excellent stand-up comedian a very very funny man uh and he will be in the studio with us he's also going on tour james he's going on tour with his show purple pill the purple pill nabil and

purple pill uh so do go and check out uh his website for details on that i'm sure you'll be convinced that you want to go and see him after this episode yes but however we'll be giving him a little bit more time time to pack for that tour if he says a secret ingredient, which we have agreed upon in advance.

Yes.

And this week, the secret ingredient is purple carrots.

Purple carrots.

Of course, we've got that from purple because this show's called the purple pill.

Purple pill.

I like purple carrots.

I like purple carrots, but I find them a little creepy.

Yeah, yeah.

Because you're used to carrots being orange.

Then

you sort of cut into a purple carrot.

I think the first time I did it, I thought, well, it's only the outside that's purple.

I'm sure the inside will be white or orange, like a normal carrot.

I thought the inside would be orange.

It's purple all the way through.

No, if the inside, if the outside was purple and the inside was orange, it would look like when you bite into a round cheese fruit pastel lolly.

Yes.

And I don't want it to do that.

Do you not like that?

Well, I don't want a carrot to look like a round cheese fruit pastel lolly.

I think you do.

I take it back.

That's right.

I've gaslighted him.

Very excited to have Nabil in the studio.

I'm on tour as well.

Hot diggity dog.

Hot diggity dog.

Edgamble.co.uk for details and tickets.

Also, my book's out: Glutton: The Multi-Course Life of a Very Greedy Boy, available from all good booksellers.

A very successful guy.

I'm busy, I wouldn't say successful.

Well, you know, I've done the things, but you know, how successful they are is yet to be seen.

It's up to you, listeners.

Yes, let's make this boy a success.

Please make me happy.

This is the off-menu menu of Nabil Abdel Nabil Abdel Vashid.

Welcome, Nabil, to the Dream Restaurant.

Welcome, Nabil Adolvashi, to the Dream Restaurant.

We've been expecting you for some time.

I'm sorry that I'm five minutes late,

but you know, I'm also sorry to my ancestors that I only arrived five minutes late.

I normally we're a lot more fashionable without it.

I see, I see.

Now, the way James says, I've been expecting you for some time, he always says that to the guests, regardless of punctuality.

Honestly, ask my ass you should have been at my wedding yeah

how did you make things awkward at your wedding just kept staring at my father-in-law

even while i was dancing with my wife i was just like

yeah that would make things pretty awkward yeah did he like it i mean he doesn't like most stuff so that's kind of hard

just different stages of annoyance and irritation yeah yeah yeah so normally you'd be later Is that right?

Yeah, but it's not a personal thing.

Sometimes, just for your safety as well.

Like,

you know, it's better that I come late so that everything is, you know.

Listen, if you're looking for logic, you're not going to find it.

My ways are mysterious to you.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes, even to me.

I'm trying to be better, but like, I have this habit of always arriving, even when I leave extra early for stuff, I always end up arriving just on time or like two minutes late and you know my agent hates it because no matter when I get briefed for stuff I'm like I'll be there I'll be there and then she'll call and she's like I know you're you're outside because you're always outside when I call and they're looking for you but where are you

just one of those things I think it's because I was a really big fan of Batman as a kid yeah and like he would always arrive just as the bad guy was about to execute.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So I just thought, in my way, I've saved you.

Yeah, you have saved us.

you're the but you're the batman of comedy see that's why i should have put it on my web on my website instead i said i'm the comedian the world needed but never knew they wanted

yeah lady doesn't like that either

are you one of those people who says you're outside when you're not as well oh no you are honest you are you are outside that's the thing so like for example i was doing a gig recently and i messaged and said hey I'm going to be arriving just before stage time.

So they started getting someone else ready to go on.

And I turned up and I'm like, oh, wait, you're here.

I said, Bitch,

I'm not gonna lie,

yeah, but that to me, if someone said that to me and I didn't know about their mysterious Batman ways, I would assume that they're not turning up on time, you know.

But now, now she knows everyone knows you, yeah, it's just now public record.

Everyone knows that you are going to turn up when you say you're going to turn up, it's just closer.

Not when you told me that I should, but it's not on purpose, no, right?

It just happens that I don't know why, yeah, yeah, or the universe just works in that way even when i was born i turned up just yeah i don't know that for a fact i mean i was there

but i didn't check they won't get another baby ready to go on before you

i mean there was a baby before me my sister and i hate her yeah we can't we don't get on but that's probably what happened we probably had an agreement and then she just showed up okay fine in this case i was really late because i came three years after

yeah well it wasn't meant to be you the first time and then you just knocked around in the womb for another three years.

Yeah, I mean, I've got big brother energy.

Yeah,

that's why I like fucking with people.

It's a big brother asshole, didn't me?

Are you a foodie?

The bill would just say that you like it.

If you could see me, what do you think?

Let's just be real here.

You know that if I did something wrong right now and you didn't know me, there's only two ways you would describe me, right?

So

you asking me whether I'm a foodie.

What's a foodie?

A person that likes food.

Do you think this happened by accident?

what you do you think that's what this is did you really

like you know I just I just had an extra donut a couple hundred thousand times by the way I don't I don't actually eat donuts no because of toxic masculinity oh yeah yeah

why why why is that so

I'm from northern Nigeria and um

allah jazz I'm in Ariwa sorry that's for my people yeah you're safe now when the revolution comes we're giving a head start

and a stick um oh so I'm from northern Nigeria Nigeria, and we are like most of the army for the majority of Nigeria's inceptions come from my part of Nigeria.

Most people don't know much about us.

In fact, sadly, currently, we're only known for two things, which is Boko Haram and me.

You know, as you can imagine, Boko Haram is a very tough act to follow.

Yeah, yeah.

Very tough acts.

You know, they always bomb

cheap items.

So our culture, apparently, we were farmers and soldiers and that sort of stuff.

So everything around our culture, like as a, growing up as a young boy, like you give, you get given food, eat it, it will make you strong.

Yeah.

What?

It will make you strong.

Why are you opening your eyes?

Why do you say that?

Because I'm strong.

I don't want, you know, and if you eat anything sweet, you were told as a boy that sweet things were for girls.

And like people will say it with so much conviction, like it was scientifically proven.

What?

Why are you going to, why do you want that sweet?

What are you, a girl?

I'm not a girl.

Yeah, then why do you want something sweet?

Because everyone knows the sweets of a girl's.

Right.

Yeah, you give it to them on their birthday when they're angry with you.

That's how it works.

And I thought, yeah, that makes perfect sense.

So growing up, like, we just didn't have a lot of sweet stuff.

Right.

So now, even now, because my wife is South Asian and they have like a big culture of desserts, I kind of hear.

my uncle in my head, what are you doing?

What is it?

It's a trap.

It's for her.

So, yeah, I'm working through that.

But unfortunately, I struggle with sweet stuff.

I do like sweet stuff, but I feel bad after, even though I shouldn't.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah.

It's been drilled into you.

I mean,

it's a tense episode for me then.

I'm a big dessert boy.

Yeah.

I love it when people, you know, make a good.

No such thing as a big dessert boy in northern Nigeria.

Yeah, there you go.

It's not.

I get turned away.

That's a big dessert boy.

I'm trying to think how I would even translate that in my language.

Actually, yeah, probably I won't say it, but yeah.

Probably double words for that.

Yeah, I love food.

I think it's amazing because it's the quickest way you can share your culture with someone.

I can't teach you my language in a day or my history, but I can make you taste it.

And in the food that comes from, because you eat what you grow.

Essentially, there's a reason why our diets are the way they are.

So like if

I make a dish from my part of Nigeria, for example, there's a whole history as to why we eat like that, where the ingredients come from, when we eat those things, and why we eat those things on specific dates.

So that's something that I really love about not just my culture's food, but all food.

I like what it represents.

Well, let's start.

We always start with still or sparkling water.

Ah, still.

Still water.

I can't drink sparkling because I believe it's regular water that the Illuminati farted in.

Illuminati Fati?

Illuminati Farti.

I had an Illuminati Fatty Party.

Yeah, exactly.

Yes!

You know!

You know!

I've been telling you for a long time.

Wake up, sheeple.

Wake up!

And don't eat broccoli, it's man-made.

Yeah.

Broccoli's man-made?

Yeah, it is.

It's not real.

Yeah.

It's not real.

What are your sources for the broccoli's man-made?

Google it now.

Broccoli is a man-made.

But what do you mean by man-made?

It comes out of the ground, right?

It does now.

Interesting.

But so were you saying it's been like synthesized in a lab?

It was made in a lab by a bunch of labor scientists

trying to turn us into communists.

Wake up.

God damn it.

I'm willing to wake up.

I just need to know what I'm waking up.

The truth is out there, sheeple.

So Belito's Googled broccoli man-made.

Yeah.

Top here, is broccoli man-made?

Contrary to the claims of some skeptics, broccoli broccoli is not a genetically modified or man-made vegetable.

It is a naturally occurring plant that belongs to the same family as kale cabbage and cauliflower.

Lies!

Lies!

He switched it before I came in because he knew.

I thought you would understand.

I thought there was a chance.

But you falled into the trap.

But now we've got backgarden.org.

Oh, yeah.

Is

in 2020, December 2020.

And it was updated this year.

Is broccoli man-made?

And they are saying the short answer is yes, broccoli is man-made.

Broccoli, as we know it, did not always exist as a plant, but was created by humans for an extensive process.

It is not known exactly how many years ago broccoli emerged, but it is believed that early varieties of this plant appeared more than 2,000 years ago.

That's Jesus' times.

Yeah.

No, that's post-Jesus actually went 22.

This is like 20 years after Jesus.

They made broccoli.

Do you think that's a coincidence?

No.

I told you people that the truth is out there.

You don't trust broccoli because it's man-made and you don't trust sparkling water because it was made at an Illuminati farty party.

And it makes you get sharty.

So it's got to be still water all the way.

It's got to be.

Now you're drinking a seven up there.

Who's done a farty in that?

What you need to understand

is that to help the sheep,

you must become like a wolf, but still be among the sheep.

Yes.

You must be a sheepdog.

Sheepdog.

I'm deep undercover, bro.

Okay.

Yeah.

I'm trying to find how they think

so you know that you're drinking farts right now synthesized farts yeah because it comes with a flavor yeah yeah yeah yeah but water on its own that's just with with with with gas in it yeah that's an affront to god yeah could you imagine it raining sparkling water

i'd quite like that actually you deviant fizzy water

fizzy rain so acid rain yeah i'd love that bad that just sounds like a very very bad remix of a prince song

Fizzy Reign.

To be honest, every remix or cover of a print song is bad.

Yeah.

And done by the Illuminati and pharma companies.

So you think Big Pharma are covering Prince songs and putting them out?

What's the aim there?

They're trying to devalue his legacy.

I've said too much.

You know who invented broccoli?

A big farmer.

Now.

Ed doesn't do jokes like that very often, Abil.

What do you think of a media property?

telling that he's trying to cover things up.

Yeah, yeah.

A big farmer.

Do you understand?

So

I've changed the meaning of farmer.

I'm well aware of what you did.

I think you'll find for a profession.

Listen,

you're stealing the truth.

Yeah.

You're stealing the truth.

I'm willing to believe that sparkling water has Illuminati Fartis in it.

I am.

And I, you know,

still water is the way to go.

I'll just check it to see if that water fizzes, brother.

No, that's still water.

Ed's drinking a glass of water at the minute, and Nebill's got his eyes firmly glued to the glass.

Yeah.

We can get you still watering the bottom.

You must stay focused, my brothers.

You must stay focused.

Pop lobs or bread.

Pop lobs on bread, Nebill and Pill Machine.

Pop loves our bread.

Bread.

What have the Illuminati done to the positive?

I'm just

very militant, so I don't like crackers.

Oh,

yes.

No, come on.

You can't give Big Farmer nothing and then give the Crackers joke a round of applause.

I liked it.

Yeah.

I liked it as well, but I liked the Big Farmer joke and you guys gave me absolutely fucked up for that.

Comedies and a meritocracy, haven't you learned?

So you say bread, but it depends.

It depends.

Like, are you talking about non-bread?

Because actually, we...

There's a type of bread I want to talk about today that we've got, but that would probably

work well as a starter.

Right.

So, yeah, we've got like there's different versions of bread.

You can have naan bread, I guess.

You could have like a paratha, or you could have like a vicharoti.

Oh, vicharotis are amazing.

I don't know if you guys have had Ramesh on, and yeah, we have.

Did he mention vicharoti?

I don't think he didn't

mention fried.

Yeah, it was deep fried.

Yeah, that means he hates you.

If he didn't mention vicharoti, it's like imagine heaven stretched out into a thin dough and just made into it.

It's just so good.

It's like a roti, but with the same kind of consistency as a pancake.

It's so soft.

Oh, wow.

Yeah.

And like if you've ever had Malaysian food, because they have a thing called roti channai that they eat with their curries, it's a similar sort of thing or like a trini roti.

So it's not tough.

It's really soft.

Those are very nice.

Yes, I like.

And would you choose that for your bread course then, or is there anything else in the running?

My bread course, this has nothing to do with my mains or my side dish or my starter yeah i just whatever you want to tour the nail put it in yeah i'd have a rotichana yeah yeah yeah i love roti chanai so what i can i get the curry with as well

oh interesting you expect that yeah you want a little you want a little we can bring you a little a little bowl of curry i think yeah i love indonesian food indoor malaysian food i love and i discovered it by mistake you know yeah what was the what was the mistake all right this is this is i've never told anyone this story before but I was a debt collector for a while.

And one of the guys I used to deck collect with was a martial artist.

And

in a situation, which I will not go into detail about, I saw him do some weird shit to this guy.

Not in a sexual way, but it could have been, to be honest.

It was so fast.

Poor bastard had no chance, man.

It was just, yeah.

It was like Jason Born shit, but it was so fast, and there was no one shaking any camera.

Like, this guy did real life shaky camera Jason Born shit to someone in a perfectly legal situation.

Yes.

And I was like, yo, what the hell was that?

And he said, it was Penchak Silat.

I'm like, what the hell is Penchak Silat?

He's like, it's this Indonesian Malaysian martial art.

And you can learn it from.

And then I was like, who taught you?

He's like, a guy called Steve.

I'm like, fuck off.

But then

we meet these people who train silat and you know I got into I've always been into on one martial art or the other since childhood because I got diagnosed with ADHD when I was really young and and asthma right and they're like a good way to work with both issues was to channel my mind and stuff into martial arts so I've always had an acute fixation with martial arts and movement and stuff.

So I went with him when we trained with this guy.

So this guy immersed himself in Indo-Malaysian culture so we had the food we were learning the culture the traditional all of it and i discovered so many amazing dishes uh like i always describe like my mom asked me what i like about malaysian food i'm like it tastes like chinese food cooked by a nigerian

like the kind of spices and flavors and yeah and that's how i discovered you know that they have a dish that's like jalof rice called nasi goreng yeah yeah they've got like um chakwei chow the flat noodle which is a lot like a pad si yu or a pad thai yeah so they've got their own version of that it's just so cool so much interesting stuff and there's a loss and large between their food our food and filipino food and if you hadn't seen someone get beaten up you wouldn't have taken they never said he was beaten up yeah they said he did some weird

yeah

that could have been sexual

well that sounds like a great breadcrumb yeah love it so what's the what's the little bowl of curry that's coming

so curry i am i mean i can actually make a decent kari i am you know but like a lot of the time if you have as a starter or just as a side, there's no meat in it.

But the sauce itself, mainly it's from chili paste, tamarind, coconut milk, onion.

They'll normally shred a bunch of onion, garlic, galangal, which is this weird, almost bastardized ginger-garlic combination thing that smells amazing.

They make that into a paste, fry it.

add in your chili, add in your onions, curry leaves.

Then they have a special curry powder that they make, which is a pain in the ass to make yourself.

So you might as well just buy it from a supermarket.

They throw in some palm sugar, coconut milk, cook it just till it congeals a little bit.

You can see a little bit of oil separating.

And like a lot of the time, they can make it with fish, chicken or curry.

And it's very unique to most curries.

Like most curries are a savory affair, but the Indomalay curries have like a nutty sweetness to them.

as well as spicy and it's just amazing if you're someone that doesn't want to have because like and i can you you know indian food indian curries are great but they can be heavy on the belly but indo malaysian curries for some strange reason just don't have the same effect on your gut and i think it's because they don't use ghee and stuff because like um i think the majapahit empire passed through that part of asia and they brought the indian influences and food but then the chinese influences also kind of remained as well so it's like a marriage of the two but each country you go to in that golden triangle area they have a different ratio of like indigenous, Indian, Chinese.

So like in Malaysia and Indonesia, there's still like a very strong Chinese element.

But then as you go further down,

some parts of these countries, it's a much more Indian.

The Philippines, it's more indigenous, but there's still elements.

So yeah, sorry, I love food.

No, this is great.

This is absolutely.

We got a foodie in the house.

Yeah, yeah.

That sounds delicious.

I never knew everything you just said.

Brokeries, man.

And also, if you want to try good Indonesian, Indo-Malaysian food, Rasa Sayang, which is literally a straight line from Soho Theater

in Chinatown, amazing.

Great.

Oh, great.

Or Uncle Lim's in Croydon.

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You check your feed and your account.

You check the score and the restaurant reviews.

You check your hair and reflective surfaces and the world around you for recession indicators.

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Or your dream starter.

My dream starter.

Okay, now, because I'm homesick, because my mom's just come over from Nigeria.

So I grew up in northern Nigeria in a place called Kaduna from the word Kada in my language, which means crocodile.

And Kaduna means loads of crocodiles because apparently before human beings kind of settled there, it was just crocodiles.

And we live near a river.

Now Nigeria itself is named after rivers.

So there's the river Niger and you know who came over and drew a line around this river and called it the Niger area.

And then they couldn't be bothered to give us a proper name so it just called Nigeria.

So we're near one of the rivers that offshoots from there called River Kaduna, which again.

river of loads of crocodiles.

So we love seafood and we love barbecue.

So to start off the meal, I would say we do this thing called balangu.

Now, it's not a goo, don't worry.

If you drive down the streets of northern Nigeria, you will find people like roasting a whole lamb or a whole sheep or a whole goat.

And it's roasted a very specific way, smoked for hours.

And then you pick what part you want and they slice it off.

into a newspaper you have to get it in newspaper right on a plate it's just not the same and then they sprinkle a special chili powder on it called yaji and give you like some salad, red onions on the side.

And now there's this special, I don't know what it's called, bread or cake that you can have with it called wena or masa.

The different words you can use for it.

And it's made from fermented yogurt and rice paste, yeast and a bit of sugar.

And then it's cooked in like...

It almost looks like the sort of thing you make cupcakes in.

But you cook it over a fire.

And it's a little bit crunchy on the outside, but super soft on the inside.

You can make it for meat dishes.

It's slightly different.

And then you can also have it with savory dishes, stews and soups and stuff.

So what they'll do is they'll get those little rice cakes.

They look a lot like

crumpets.

They look like crumpets, but they're whiter.

They just cut them into squares and sprinkle it over your balangu and your chilies.

And that is perfect starter.

And you can have fish.

balangu you can have then there's also something called suya i know you must have i'm sure you've had nigerians on here before

We've spoken about Suya before.

But if they're not from the north, what they call Suya is fake.

Because we created it, right?

Everyone bites our culture, but they don't like it.

So like traditional Suya, it has to be made with a marinade made from nuts and beans and paste and nut oil.

Oh, you guys use so much nuts in your cooking in Nigeria.

What about Nigerians?

who have nut allergies?

They're extinct.

So culinary Darwinism,

they're extinct, but you must try it.

Honestly, Suya and Balangul normally will be sold side by side.

So, Suya is meat on sticks, yeah, and then you'll have like a whole fish.

And we have Ice Surrender chicken, which is basically chicken that's like this.

Yeah,

we call it I Surrender, or I swear to God,

and you grill it, and it gets kind of you have like a little mixed grill situation, yeah, and that is the perfect starter.

Wow, so are you having just the lamb or the lamb and the chicken and the fish?

I mean, I'm assuming we're having this meal together.

Well, we can

do

meals are best shared.

I don't like eating by myself.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So, you know, I would say, yeah, I would get that.

So, and a mixture of different things, just so we can try it.

Because even the offal in the cow is,

or the goat, or whatever, is grilled the same way.

Yeah.

And all of you are like, oh, I would never eat intestine.

But then you actually try it.

It's like, oh, actually, that's

not bad.

And besides, it's in you it's in sausages and stuff so you should eat the whole animal if you if you got a if you're gonna

big believe in that in fact uh um i went back home on eid and so uh we have a traditional we have a sultanate in northern nigeria and they stretch back like

even around the time of the ottoman empire they never interfered they respected our emirate so like we're predominantly muslim like 90 something percent Muslim in the north.

I think we're the last people to hold our traditional rulership.

All the invaders that came to Nigeria could not destroy the empire.

It stretched from northern Nigeria to Ghana to Sudan, parts of Morocco.

Really, really huge empire.

So I speak the widest spoken language in West Africa, second widest spoken language in Africa.

There's actually a BBC whole service in my language, Hausa.

The yeah, so we had sultans and emirs.

who ruled over us in traditional rule and the English could not get them out of traditional rule or make us stop practicing our faith.

So they had to compromise with the north and say, okay, look, we'll rule you guys indirectly because we're tired of fighting.

Just how about that?

And we're like, okay, fine, because we're tired of dying.

And so they still maintain that rule.

So even though there's a democracy in Nigeria, our traditional rulers still have some level of power in the north.

And every year we have like a legendary king.

who went on this battle and he took out all the corrupt rulers in the north.

He went by horseback with a bunch bunch of his relatives and they cleaned the north of like despotic rulers.

We should come back and do it again.

But every year on Eid, they reenact this legendary mission.

He went on and his descendants sit down in chairs and the best horse riders do it.

They charge towards the royal family and stop within feet.

And the king never flinches, never moves.

It's just like big thing.

And then my grandfather was our second ever high commissioner to the UK and he nearly got killed in a coup.

But because he grew up with the guy who was king at that time, long before he became king, that king lied and said that my grandfather was part of the royal family.

So you can't, you know, you can execute democratic rulers, but you cannot touch royalty.

So they let my granddad go, even though he wasn't no royal.

So as a mark of thanks, until

this king now has passed away, Rahmullah.

But up until his death, we would go every Eid to visit him.

I've actually, I can actually show you a picture of me and him.

But like we would go to say thank you.

I'd go with my mom and then they'd give us like a ram or a goat or something to slaughter for Eid.

And

this last trip I went with my mom, we got given a ram and I named him Ram Bro.

Yeah.

Like and like, you know, there's this thing that rams do where they stomp their feet on the floor.

and point their head to challenge you and like this guy kept on trying to escape from the boot so like we went back and he untied himself somehow and then he like challenged me to a duel and i didn't oblige we tied him back up we stuck him in the boot and when we got back home like we fed him fattened him up for like a week before you know the inevitable yeah and you know i had a bond with this animal and i feel like if you can't kill an animal you shouldn't eat one

and waste not you know so we used the skin to make a rug we used different ligaments for string instruments and things the people that come and collect it everything everything from the animal had to be used and you know what out of respect i made sure i seasoned him properly when i could

yeah yeah

the least i could do you know but like i don't like oh my god you couldn't i could never like you know i saw an animal like or they see fish like they go to these places where you get live fish and then they can't eat the fish yeah to me that's hypocrisy you should be able to

sure you know because if if everything went to pan tomorrow you know eventually tesco's and stuff would be empty you'd have to hunt and kill your own meat.

Yeah, you say the chicken is surrendering.

Yeah, exactly.

Are all the other animals in that position when they're on the side of the road?

Is the little

flippers on the fish?

Well, actually, tell you what,

the rams upside down, so it's kind of like a.

Yeah, yeah, that's proper surrender.

If you were in a war, you were like, come out of here.

And they came out

standing on their hands with their legs in the air.

I go, yeah, they're proper surrendering those guys.

Yeah, or trying to plan.

Yeah, or to plan, yeah.

You feel that's a fun.

I mean, if you had a road raid incident, the guy got out of the car doing a handstand,

especially in Brazil because they've got like the coffee, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm getting back in my car.

If it was that guy you used to work with and he got on his hands, you'd be like, No way, I'm about to get that guy's, that guy's about to kill me or fuck me.

Tell me if you're not.

But I'm not even going to know.

Your dream main course.

My dream main course.

Cheeru.

Okay.

Man, is this this?

There's so many runners up.

I was thinking like Ofada Rice is one.

I don't know if you've ever had that on here, but Ofada Rice is

a special grain of rice grown in Nigeria.

But there's a story behind it.

So like a lot of soldiers were deployed in World War II from Nigeria.

Say deployed forced, well, you know,

they were convinced to go fight for queen and country.

They were deployed to Burma.

My great uncle was one such person.

He was deployed in Burma and he had a lot of funny stories there.

Apparently he got married out there.

Anyway,

so

a lot of people lived out there and learned how to like grow certain crops and they came back with a species of rice from Burma and they crossed it with Nigerian rice and one of the breeds of rice that exists now is Ofada rice which is a distinctly pungent rice and it's very heavy so like a kilo kg of Ofada rice looks a lot smaller than a kg of regular rice and it takes a lot longer to boil but it's supposedly something your hipster would call a superfood um you know like it's packed with all kinds of nutrients and stuff and the nigerian army brought it back and we eat it with a stew called ayamashe or designer stew which is made from an ungodly amount of chilies, like Scotch Bonnie.

Like Nigerian food is hot, I'm sure you realize that, but this is food so hot that even most Nigerians think, yeah, you can only have that like once in a month or something.

It's super hot.

So it's,

you make a stock from goat meat, right?

Put it aside, and then you blend about six green bell peppers, about six red onions, and about 14 or 15 Scotch bonnet chilies,

some some ginger, some garlic, you then fry it in palm oil and of course ethically source palm oil because in Nigeria, our palm oil is gained simply.

We don't burn orangutans to get it, please.

Thank you.

So I have to say that because I did.

Celebrity Master Chef and I used palm oil.

Yeah.

So I coughed.

You want to.

I'm like, did you even read where I got the pop sauce?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Just to preempt that.

And yeah, you fry it in palm oil.

You probably will cough for a little bit and cry.

Yeah.

And your life will flash between your eyes.

You then add the stock back in um you can roast your meats before you put them in the sauce just to give it a little bit of crunch and um you serve it over or fada rice uh with some fried plantain on the side and traditionally what we would do is we would wrap it in banana leaf for a little bit before opening it and you eat it in a banana leaf that sounds sad

so that would have been yeah

but i thought you guys already had nigerians here yeah and like while that is nigerian it's not distinctly northern nigerian

so i would go for something northern Nigerian something distinctly northern Nigerian would be Mia and Taoshe so Mia means sauce of

and Taoshe is pumpkin and like with a lot of Nigerian foods that like we'll have like a basic

like how Cajun cooking has like a roux or whatever we or Jamaicans have green seasoning we we have a thing where we'll blend onions tomatoes chilies and so on together and then what we do is again we'll boil a meat of choice keep the stock and while you're boiling the meat you also boil a pumpkin right cover out the insides and um you fry your sauces in your oil adding the mash from the pumpkin and then very very specific raw organic peanut butter that we make man you add it in and toss your meats in and we can eat that with ground rice have you ever had ground rice or seen it it's i think i have it's kind of like you know how you've got like mashed potatoes and stuff

so we have similar concepts in nigeria where we can do it with rice, we can do it with yam, plantains, but it's still like a general term you could call it swallow or fufu and you can use your hands to eat it.

So we have those in the north.

We can make it from rice.

We can make it from maize, flour, semolina.

Pick your poison really.

And we would eat something like that.

with me and tausé and it's it's a sweet nutty spicy dish it's amazing last time i went home like aunties kept on sending it um my wife did not complain.

Honestly, it's amazing.

And also, you have to have like a bit of spinach or kale in there as well.

Once it's done, you just put a bunch of spinach in there and it wilts.

And it's a delicious dish, man.

Oh, sounds so good.

I've never heard of that before.

Yeah.

Yeah, I'll show you how to do that.

You're right that we haven't had that.

I don't know if we'd had a fad of ice before.

Maybe we hadn't.

But like, we definitely haven't had meat and tail shea before.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That is, yeah.

I wish there was a way I could describe how it tastes because it's so good and it's so different.

Yeah, the pumpkin and peanut butter in there.

Oh, that sounds so good.

That sounds like the kind of thing you'd buy from Marks and Spencer's Edge.

I'm just thinking.

I wonder if Marks is doing.

We'd love that.

Well, tell you what, I've walked through places like Intros and Marks and Spencer's and I'm like, you know what?

Push white folk do eat a lot like Africans though.

I saw like a container of goose fat and I'm like, we use fats as well as a replacement for oil and things like that.

So, yeah, I'm like, hey,

I guess we're not so different after all.

Your dream side dish.

Has anyone here mentioned Muimoy to you before?

No, no, really?

No, I don't think so.

You've had Nigerians on here.

They haven't mentioned Muimoy?

No, I don't think they have.

A bunch of plastic Nigerians.

What the hell, man?

They came here and then they would somehow talk about Jolof.

I'm not even going to talk about Jolo.

We often get bogged down in the Jolof war, the Ghanaian versus Nigerian Jollof rice.

That's the kind of Nigerians that argue, and the kind of Ghanians argue about that stuff would need Google Maps to find their way around if they went back home, is what I'm saying.

That is the most basic aspect of our cuisine.

The most ba, like, it's it's bloody rice, bro.

It's right.

I mean, yeah,

and the thing is, neither of us invented it.

Senegal did, but like,

you know how stupid we must look to Senegalese people.

I'm a version of this Senegalese dishes, but shut up, man.

Honestly, I love Jaloff rice, right?

But it's like African food one-on-one.

Like, if I had the friend that I'm not sure of, like he's invited to the cookout, but I'm still not quite sure.

I would give him Jaloff.

Like, that's the most basic African dish right next to white rice and stew, right?

It's just basic.

And then, when I think your levels, then I might introduce some like pounded yam and a goosey soup or, you know, something like that.

But jolof,

that's like arguing about who makes fish and chips better.

The most black is the most basic dish.

I mean, it's good.

It's better than all other rice dishes.

You know, even Ghanaian Jaloff rice is better than 90% of rice dishes.

Ghani and Jolof rice is brilliant.

It tastes almost like the real thing.

But no, in all seriousness, it's down to who cooks it.

Yeah.

And plus, Nigeria, we've got 300 tribes.

Everybody makes it different.

Yeah.

I will say ours is the best because we are the closest to the originators, the Senegalese.

Culturally, we're very similar to them.

But then there's people from my tribe in Ghana too.

So yeah, I don't have, I don't really, I make fun of Ghana because it's a national requirement.

But honestly, I have no,

I haven't involved in this fight.

Yeah.

Chill Chill out, friends.

But yeah, Mui Moi is a good side dish.

Or akara, similar thing.

So you get beans ground into a paste and you can get put in like a boiled egg in there or whatever you want in the paste.

Put it in a mold and steam it.

And it comes out like this really high protein bean cake type thing.

Or you can fry them.

and it becomes like buns but it made from beans wow and um in brazil they're eating as well and And they're called akrae.

But you have to go to Bahia in northern Brazil because, you know, a few hundred years ago, a bunch of West Africans were dicking there on work experience.

And it was quite an experience and lots of work.

And yeah, but like a lot of traditional Nigerian cuisine or West African cuisine can be found.

in Brazil, even other parts of South America.

I think other South Americans have something called tamales.

And again, it's a very similar sort of thing.

So again, you could boil it in a mold, or if you want to be super traditional, banana leaves.

You boil them on the side.

Thing is, if you eat all these things in combination, you're going to fart yourself into orbit.

Like,

I mean,

you ever fight anyway?

No, I don't want to.

If you're eating this meal, you want to make sure you're not doing anything for the rest of the day, right?

You can't.

Okay, I'm going to ask a question, right?

Just,

I don't do toilet humor.

Sure, but I just want to know if it's only me.

Yeah.

Have you ever farted so hard that it pushed your balls?

Pushed them.

Like you were sitting down and like...

Yeah, because you were sitting down, your balls kind of pushed your balls to get...

I mean, I've not noticed that.

I've never done a ball tickler.

I've probably done the tickler.

But I've not pushed.

I've not pushed my ball.

I don't...

No, like, highly bush, the fucking mountain.

Yeah, sure.

Yeah, yeah.

You've got so much power.

But that's what I mean.

So much Dragon Ball Z.

But

I've not seen much Dragon Ball Z.

No, you know what?

No.

I don't know.

I don't, but I think I know where you're going with it.

But I don't think...

I think I've probably felt the

fart on my balls.

But it didn't push.

It didn't move the balls.

If you see what I mean.

Is that what happens in Dragon Ball Z?

No.

As they fart and push each other's balls around.

I mean, maybe off camera, but you have like these

massive fireball things things that they do

It was like that of farts like I had to stop what I was doing and take a few minutes to just yeah collect myself and you've been eating more is that is that what has he said it?

Yeah, yeah

Your dream drink now this is tough.

My wife's already probably angry with me because I've not put in anything from her culture.

But there's one thing of hers that so there's three runners up right.

There's a drink called Zobo or sobo and it's made from boiled hibiscus leaves like dry really dry from the hibiscus flour um boiled with ginger cloves

cinnamon and some other shit and it's boiled till the color is extracted into the water and then you add a bit of sugar and maybe some vanilla flavoring and it once chilled that drink is probably one of the best things i have ever tasted in my life Right?

Like, I don't do alcohol.

I've never tasted alcohol in my life.

But if that drink was intoxicating, I'd be body gumble.

Like it's that good.

So that there's that.

Then there's a Nigerian Chapman drink, which till today, nobody is sure exactly how it's made.

And it was around for a specific period.

Only one restaurant anywhere outside of Nigeria makes it.

and it's called Enish.

Oh, yeah.

We've heard about that on the podcast before.

Yeah,

I'm convinced convinced that there's like a witch doctor there who just opens up a portal and it bleeds into a jug because honestly, I don't even know how to describe it.

It's like we would try and make our own.

Like we'll try and mix like Fantan Coke and then put some grenadine in it or something

and lemon.

But like cucumber, all I know is that cucumber is an essential part of that drink.

Right.

Okay.

Yeah.

Nigerian chapman.

And obviously, non-alcoholic version.

I know there's an alcoholic version.

Nigerian chapman is another drink so good that i'm convinced it must be really bad for you because yeah there's no way god will allow such a thing to exist

and taste that nice and it's harmless it probably shaves years off your life or yeah i don't know what it is i don't know it's really good so this yeah then there's mango lassie which is you know anyone who's ever you know stumbled into an indian restaurant at some point and asked for something to help with the spiciness of their food knows about lassie and that drink's amazing and it's also great for your bowels.

Yeah, yeah, it's fantastic.

Why look at Benito for five minutes and nodding?

He looks constipated.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah,

give him the tip.

Little tip for you.

There's nothing coming out of there.

His balls haven't moved in years.

No, yeah.

Stationary.

Don't worry.

He might be saving it up for that one day.

Yeah.

One day.

Nigerian wedding day.

Yeah.

So, so, yeah, those three things.

Oh, just apple juice, man.

I love apple juice.

It's amazing.

Yeah, it is amazing.

Anyone who doesn't like apple juice is a psychopath.

You had apple juice yesterday.

We went for lunch.

Yeah, and you didn't come.

I knew there had to be something about you I'd like.

I did apple juice twice and I expected Ed to make fun of me for it, but it didn't happen.

Yeah, but it was in a nice place and I felt like they probably did apple juice really well.

It wasn't like they were

freshly juiced.

Have you ever had Guarana?

No.

Didn't they put that in boost bars once?

Yeah, they did.

So, weird story.

There was this guy in Nigeria who, again, I think he was a corrupt politician or some shit, but

he was married to a Braziliana, Brazilian woman.

And so she opened up this business in Nigeria and she just imported loads of Brazilian stuff over.

And for some strange reason, there was this drink, like the equivalent of a Fanta, but made with Guarana called Brahma Guarana.

Right.

And it was nuts.

It was a big part of my childhood, like the drink.

And I never even knew it was Brazilian until one day when I walked past a Brazilian like supermarket.

Because I live in Croydon and we have a huge population of Brazilians.

And I walked past.

I was like, oh, and I saw all these things from my childhood.

And I was like, I didn't even know all this stuff was Brazilian.

That being said, growing up, there's a huge Lebanese influence in the north.

So like we have a lot of Lebanese Nigerians.

probably Palestinian ethnically, but they had a Lebanese passport and they moved to Nigeria when I was like a kid.

And growing up, there were so many I didn't know Lebanon was another country I just thought Lebanese were a tribe in Nigeria so like there's a Nigerian shawarma which is different from a regular Lebanese shawarma yeah so there's a whole bunch of like so that's like a subset of Nigerian cuisine that no one even really talks about outside of Nigeria but like

yeah there's Lebanese Nigerian food so which drink have you settled on here which is the which is the dream drink I was gonna go with apple juice but you had it yesterday so

you won't choose apple juice because I had it yesterday you know like when someone moves into the neighborhood and you're like there it goes

i'll throw an apple juice for you yeah yeah

i thought i was the only one that liked it

spoiled it man no no no if i say i like it and i want that it just sounds like i'm having it because he had it yeah yeah yeah it must be no but you had mentioned apple juice before i brought up that he had it yesterday but people listening don't know that they might think that we agreed to promote apple juice i think i'll go with the first one the the the sorrel drink the um hibiscus leaf drink yeah you yeah the way you described that saying it's one of the best things you've ever tasted yeah i mean it's got to be so there's a bit in in all the different drinks you were listening that i think a lot of our listeners who have been listening for a long time will be will listen to and they'll go why didn't they pick him up on that and i'll tell you why so oh yeah okay when you said mango lassie a lot of them will be listening and going now Christian Gooey Murphy came on the podcast.

Yeah.

Told these guys it's pronounced lussy.

Yeah.

Ever since then, they've pronounced it mango lussy.

Why are they not picking Nabil up on this?

It's because Nabil is very knowledgeable about loads of things.

So I'm assuming that turns out you've been getting it wrong about it.

But I've been getting it wrong because Christian is because the newsreader here cannot know as much as Nabil does.

I'll tell you my reason for saying lussy.

I know it's lussy, but to be fair, I'm sure there's a whole bunch of stuff from my culture Krishnan and Guru Murphy can't say.

So fuck him.

You know.

Finally,

this is the feud that people have been waiting for.

If you can say Tuan Shinka for the Miyan Toshi,

then, okay,

I'll call it Lassie.

But till then, it's Lassie, bitch.

Just like the dog.

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Dream dessert.

Chi-hoo.

Close second is Fura de Nono, which is for a steamed millet mixed with fresh sour cream, yogurt, and brown sugar and left to chill and soak.

We have these, there's a tribe called Fula, Fulani people.

There's loads in West, like Nigeria, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, Conakry, and all of that.

But you can even find them as far across Africa as in the east, in Somalia, right?

And they're mainly casseras, like most nomads.

And like

those that still practice the nomadic stuff you know you see some they walk down the street and and they have this like calabash it's a calabash it's a big wooden um bowl and it's a bowl within a bowl within a bowl they carry it on their heads in the summer and I remember as a kid you'd stop them and you'd ask for some fora and somehow they did it in such a way that it was insulated so it was cold but there was no technology it was just the wood and some cloth and stuff and they would put like a little bit of the millet they'd mash mash it and then they'd pour the cream and yogurt into it and you'd have it in the summer and it was so good millet especially when it fermented for a little bit had this lethargic effect on you it was really relaxing and it was like it was sweet and sour but it was a dessert it was it was almost like um imagine the same texture as uh not even a rice pudding because there was liquid in there and there was a bit of solid like chewiness to it but not like tapioca balls i don't know how to explain it but it was good.

It was really good.

Is it it's obviously sweet because it's got the brown sugar in it, but yeah, is that uh a girl, a girl's sweet, or can boy can boys have that one?

It's a manly sweet because it's got spiciness to it as well.

Oh, nice, yeah.

See, that's one of the few sweet things that you could have, and no one could call you any names like that.

I was, yeah, because it's got the space, it's got a bit of spice to it, yeah, yeah.

You have to suffer a little bit, yeah,

it makes you strong, it's a dessert that makes you strong, yeah,

makes you strong, makes you strong,

Harsh foods, it makes you strong.

So there's that.

Or my wife, her auntie, makes a dessert that's, I think it's a Pakistani-style bread pudding called Shay Tukhre.

I don't know how it's made.

I have no clue.

It's one of those things that I think is better.

I don't know.

And again, it's one of those things that probably if you have four.

in a week it'll kill you because it tastes that good four

yeah i don't know

if it tastes that good can't be good for you yeah just yeah it can't that must you said four there so that must mean that one week you had three yeah

and i'm just glad to make you alive

it just felt too good

like i must be sinning somehow this is too good

sweet cinnamony bready oh yeah um yeah it's it's oh it's fantastic did you have any anything on that custard or anything or

there's some kind of yellow stuff on it.

I don't know whether it's custard.

I don't know whether it's just flipping condensed.

I don't know what it is.

There's like they had like, you know, the dried rose petal thing that is in a lot of South Asian desserts.

And yeah, I don't know what the hell that stuff was, man, but it was good.

I love how obviously knowledgeable you are about like northern Nigerian cuisine.

You know, everything that goes into it and how to cook it.

And this thing was so good that you're like, don't tell me anything.

I don't want any.

I don't want to.

Oh, you know, it's a dessert.

And, you know.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah, of course.

You can't know how to make it because.

Yeah, it's got rose petals on it, of course.

Yeah, yeah, you are.

You're lucky that you're eating that in Croydon.

It's the loose gets back there.

I feel it.

Ex-communicated.

I'd have to get a Ghanaian passport.

So, which one did we decide on?

I think the second.

Yeah.

It's just because I don't want my wife being angry with me for not

representing.

Yes.

You're representing your whole life here.

Yeah.

You as a person across the board.

Yeah, yeah.

No, it's very

excited now, Nabil, because this is the part where James reads the menu back.

I'll read you your menu back to you.

So, James is now going to attempt to remember the pronunciation of everything that you've listed.

This is going to be good.

Right, Nabil's put his hands behind his head, he's reclining in his seat, like a lamb, he's ready.

Sorry,

also, let's not forget that he is reading a list that has been written by the great Benito.

Here we go, still water, publoms of bread, roti canae with kariyayan.

Yep.

Starter.

Mixed meat and fish.

Balangu with masa bread.

Yeah.

Main course.

Mian tao she with ground rice.

Kakyota yaro.

Kakyota.

Very good.

Side dish, Moi Moi.

Drink, Zobo.

Dessert.

Oh no.

Shahi tukra.

I did alright.

Yeah, you did.

You did really well.

But I could feel every time Nabil said a dish,

I could almost hear you going going over it in your head over and over again, practicing how to say it.

This guy's never had a McDonald's.

What's going on?

Come on.

I've got a sight of stuff actually.

In Morocco.

Oh, yeah.

Because here there aren't any hello.

No.

McDonald's.

You're in a Moroccan's.

Yeah, he doesn't matter.

I held you in high esteem until now.

Oh, yeah, because

you did the putt earlier.

Yeah, we all laughed at fucking Rambro.

That's great.

You know, some people get away with it.

Rambro's brilliant.

Nabil, that menu sounds absolutely amazing.

Sounds incredible.

Like, quite often there's like things that me and James are like, oh, we'd like to try that.

But the things I didn't know existed and I can't wait to try them.

I'd eat every single bit of that.

If you'd like to give any of this stuff a try, there's a place called Baba Foundation in Norbury.

And he actually is a household man like me.

So he's from the north of Nigeria.

And like, especially when it comes to our barbecue stuff, he does it all including grilled pheasant.

Oh, wow.

So I'm doing that.

Wow, Baba Foundation.

Thank you so much, Nabil.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you, Nabil.

Thanks so much to Nabil for coming into the Dream Restaurant.

Thank you, Nabil.

That was an amazing episode.

It was an education.

It was hilarious.

Yes.

We barely had to do any work.

Yeah, thank you for that, Nabil.

Yeah.

Just honestly, just completely enraptured by him.

Just sat there.

Let him tell us history about northern Nigeria, about the food from that area, and then just laughing and laughing and laughing.

Yeah, the debt collected, that was funny.

Yes, that was good.

It was a great time.

Yeah, loved it.

Absolutely loved it.

And also very happy he didn't say the secret ingredient, purple carrots, James.

Which Benito pointed out, he probably would definitely not pick that because people make out that carrots aren't meant to be orange anyway.

Yeah.

And that that's like man-made.

Yes.

And the purple ones are how they're meant to look.

Yes.

So Nabil probably would not trust the orange carrots anyway yeah would prefer the purple ones you know and you know the word orange james yeah for the fruit and we use it for the color yeah the color is named after the fruit which is named after a man what yeah jason orange

wow the fruit was created for i think it was william of orange yeah or one of them those guys Yeah, so they called it the orange.

Yeah.

And then that colour we now call orange because of the fruit because of the guy.

That's crazy.

Yeah, and I'm sure I'm wrong.

And someone get in contact and tell me.

You know what else I just thought?

Right.

Jason Orange.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I never met or heard of anyone else with the surname orange.

Is it just him?

William of Orange?

That's odd, William of Orange.

But like, Jason Orange, I've never met anyone else.

Hello, my name's Barbara Orange.

Yeah.

I guess his family.

Yeah, but where were they?

I've never heard of them.

Yeah, but you're not going to have heard of them because, you know, they're not famous, but I'm sure his family, the oranges, I've never even heard him talk about them.

Yeah, that's true.

I think it might just be him.

Yeah, why don't we get him on and ask?

I'd happily get Jason Orange on the podcast.

You know, the secret ingredient, I'll be an orange.

Don't forget, Nabil is on tour, the purple pill.

Go and see that show, it will be absolutely brilliant.

Uh, check out his website and social media for details.

Uh, come and see me on tour, hot doggedy dog at gamble.co.uk.

Buy my book, Glutton, the Multi-Course Life of a Very Gritty Boy.

Anything you want to plug, James?

When's this going out?

New Year?

Happy New Year, everyone.

Um, I guess uh, i'll plug uh my my uh audio sitcom springleaf yes uh my album party gate of purgatory by temps my book james acres got to quit social media gonna go on tour in the new year as of recording not sold out yet held us welcome too busy man why are we too talented too too goddamn talented yeah that's true apart from with our diaries Yeah, not very talented with them.

We will see you next week in the Dream Restaurant.

See you next week in the Dream Restaurant.

you love you

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Hello, I'm Carrie Add.

I'm Sarah.

And we are the Weirdos Book Club podcast.

We are doing a very special live show as part of the London Podcast Festival.

The date is Thursday, 11th of September.

The time is 7pm.

And our special guest is the brilliant Alan Davies.

Tickets from kingsplace.co.uk.

Single ladies is coming to London.

True on Saturday, the 13th of September.

At the London Podcast Festival.

The rumours are true.

Saturday, the 13th of September.

At King's Place.

Oh, that sounds like a date to me, Harriet.