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Oven Roasted Sawa – Herring

Okay… so can we all agree that ijebu garri should be sold in a bottle? Like, I will love to enter my local grocer and pick up a completely chilled and perfectly sour bottle of garri ijebu, just imagine how refreshing that would be. My garri obsession is epic, my mother said it started from the womb.. hahahha. There are loads of things that can be served with garri, from moimoi to akara, to chicken, to groundnut, to roasted meat (now I want some roasted meat). I have had some epic garri combinations in my life but nothing is as amazing as Garri and fish.

Naturally, garri and fried fish comes to mind when you think about this combination, but let me tell you something, roasted herrings are the business (eja sawa). There are lots of naturally occurring oils in most fish, deep frying them in often an overkill (with some exceptions).

This is one of my absolute favorite things to serve cold garri with, even the husband is a huge fan and he usually doesn’t like unfilleted fish. This perfect recipe make the fish crisp, yet juicy and the bones are small enough that you can chew right through them.

Do try the recipe! I am looking forward to your feedback

 

Roasted Herring
Recipe Type: Main
Cuisine: African
Author: 9jaFOODie
Prep time:
Cook time:
Total time:
Serves: 10
This is my absolute favorite thing to eat garri with, the bones are tiny enough to chew through. Bonus, they are a sustainable specie and typically wild caught, this is something that should be very important to everyone when selecting fish. if you live outside of Nigeria, you can find herring in the frozen fish isle.
Ingredients
  • 8-10 herring fish (sawa)
  • 2 maggi cubes
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1 tablespoon dry pepper
  • 1 teaspoon onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon ginger powder
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400f . Line an oven tray with parchment or foil and set aside.
  2. Scale, gut and clean fish. Pat dry and season with salt. Set aside.
  3. Combine all spices and maggi with the oil. set aside
  4. Arranged fish on lined oven tray. with a brush, generously cover each fish with seasoning oil.
  6. Place fish in the oven and baked for 30-35 minutes of until fish is crispy
  8. Serve with cold garri