I love Kilishi a lot and I always craved for it, I have a friend in Abuja who always brought it to school whenever she goes home, I always requested for Kilishi whenever she leaves school to be with her family, it is so funny how it is so peppery but we cannot even stop eating it. are you a kilishi lover like myself and you really want to know how this is made then you are reading the right post.
Ingredients for making Kilishi
- 10 pieces wafer-thin beef
- 1 tablespoon suya spice (suya pepper)
- 3 cloves of garlic
- 1 teaspoon cloves (Kanafuru)
- A small piece of ginger
- 1 small stock cube
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon dried cayenne pepper seeds
What you should know about the Ingredients
- The beef you will use for Kilishi should be cut from the reddest part of the beef with no fat at all.
- Cut the beef as thin as possible. It is usually as thin as 3mm. The Mai Kilishis have the sharpest knife in the world. Their ability to cut a large blanket of beef so thinly is a skill that cannot be rivaled.
Where I live, the butchers have an appliance for cutting beef into very thin fillets. Unfortunately, they cannot get a large blanket of beef so I manage the small pieces the size of my palm. - You can buy the suya spice (suya pepper) in African food stores, you can also make yours. Visit How to make Nigerian Suya Spice for details.
- By 3 cloves of garlic I mean 3 small pieces of garlic you get when you break up a bulb of garlic.
- Cloves are a spice that gives the Kilishi a unique flavor.
- I used fresh ginger but you can use dry ground ones instead.
- You only need a small quantity of salt. You may not even need it if you do not eat a lot of salt. Be careful when adding salt else the Kilishi will be over-seasoned when done.
- You get the dry cayenne pepper seeds by removing the red part of the pepper.
How to make Kilishi spice
- Grind the cloves with a dry mill and set aside.
- Peel the garlic and ginger and pound/grind into a smooth paste.
- Add the ground cloves and crushed stock cubes to the garlic and ginger paste.
- And some water, stir and sieve to get an extract of these spices and seasoning.
- Add the suya spice and cayenne pepper seeds to the solution, stir and set aside.
How to make Kilishi
- Cut the beef into very thin fillets if it has not been done for you by the butchers.
- Cut off all traces of fat from the beef.
- Set your oven to 250°C (475F) or Gas Mark 9 to preheat. If your oven temperature settings are not up to these, use the highest possible setting but this means that your own drying times will change. If your oven has a fan, turn it on as well because it helps dry the beef faster.
- Sprinkle a tiny quantity of salt on the fillets of beef and spread them around. You only need a tiny quantity and you can skip salt altogether.
- Line your oven tray with a baking sheet and lay the pieces of beef flat on it.
- Put the tray of beef into the oven and bake for 15 minutes. Flip the beef every 5 minutes for even drying.
- After 15 minutes, bring out the beef from the oven and brush the Kilishi all over them, making sure that both sides of the beef are well covered.Note:
The way they do it in the North is to dry the fillets of beef in the sun for 2 days then soak them in the Kilishi spice solution and spread in the sun (on flat rafia baskets) till dry.
Some grill it after soaking in the Kilishi solution. - Put them back in the oven and bake for additional 10 to 15 minutes. Flip them from time to time and this time, keep a very good eye on it else it will become bone dry. You want it dry and chewy not crunchy.
