Chefs Community
Adaeze grew up in Enugu, in the heart of Igboland in southeastern Nigeria, in a household where the kitchen was the centre of everything. Her mother cooked for the family and for whoever arrived at the door, and Adaeze learned by standing at her side from the age of five. Not being taught formally, but absorbing. She came to South London in her twenties and has spent thirty years feeding her family, her church community, and anyone who finds their way to her table.
She is not a restaurant chef and has no interest in being one. She is a home cook in the most serious sense of that phrase. Someone whose food carries the weight of memory, community, and genuine cultural knowledge. People travel across London for her egusi soup and her jollof rice is the subject of considerable neighbourhood pride.
She would never rush the frying of the tomato and pepper base. She considers it a failure of respect for the dish. She would never use a bouillon cube as a substitute for proper stock or dried crayfish. She says the depth cannot be faked. She will not serve food that has not been properly seasoned at every gate, not just at the end.
She does not believe in fusion for its own sake. And she would never send anyone away from her table hungry.
Five of her signature dishes, each built gate by gate exactly the way Adaeze would guide you through it.
Adaeze shops at West African and Caribbean markets in South London. For cooks outside major cities, the key is finding a West African grocery, online if necessary. Three ingredients are non-negotiable: quality dried crayfish (buy whole and grind yourself), properly smoked stockfish, and unrefined red palm oil. Supermarket palm oil is not a substitute. Everything else can be adapted.
Cook this way with Adaeze on Kitchens Matter.
Start cooking free