Afrolems

Thank you to all that recognize past and present work even though I haven’t creatively shared a lot majority of this year. Thank you to those that still honor the space and members of the space. 🙏🏾

Still drooling over this Guineafowl tacos 😝 what are the most creative tacos you have ever had?

Allow me to reintroduce myself, my name is Hov. Ok kidding my name is Atim and I’m the Creative Director of Afrolems Culinary Services.

Afrolems started as a catering business in 2009 in Toronto and we started a blog to promote the catering business. We shared our recipes but still catered the same dishes to our customers at the time and then the blogging side evolved into a life of its own. We worked briefly in San Francisco and Boston and decided to bring it home to Nigeria.

Since then the business has evolved into doing Restaurant Consultations, Outdoor and Private Catering, Canapé Services for events, Content Creation for Brands, Product Development for Brands and Retail Food sales through our ( ) page on IG.

We are passionate about Nigerian food and we ensure we bring it into every menu we serve. We believe in the wide possibilities of Nigerian ingredients and we are determined to show you how.

With my background in Digital enterprise management, social entrepreneurship, design thinking and marketing strategy, I’ve been able to stay in the culinary industry for 14 years and explore the length and breadth of it.

That’s a short summary of me, tell me about you 😊

Work: Please organize a cooking competition for Thanasis antetokounmpo and his mum.

Me: Alright bet!

Thank you team Flour Mills! This was a ball!

On my journey to Nkwobi Mayo, I realized how important mouthfeel is in nailing the taste. “Mouthfeel is defined as the sensations arising from the interactions of ingested food, mixed with saliva, with the receptors in the mouth that respond to tactile stimuli during mastication” (Smith and Margolskee, 2001).
From: Modifying Food Texture, 2015

Essentially, mouthfeel is how the taste all comes together in your mouth and it made me realize that with all the elements mixed in, all that was missing was the powdery element which were potash or baking soda. The egg as a base somehow interacted with the baking soda and created a mousse like texture for the Nkwobi sauce but the potash stayed neutral. I will be trying cornstarch next to see if that contributes to mouthfeel. Texture for the Mayo is almost there. Just need to figure out measurements. It is important to me to nail both the texture and the taste. What other powders do you think I can use?

Reliving the weekend eats from our recent event we catered.

Breaking the Nkwobi speak with the Beef Suya Rice Bowl image because I love it 😍

On the 27th of April, my brief was to provide cold and hot canapés for a client event with 170 people in mind. The event was hosted by and it was the launch of "The World Ahead by " With a team of 16 people, we were able to execute a total of 12 different dishes in a short time frame. The lesson we learned on this project was staying in our originality and also being open to flexibility. With a lot of moving parts, we were able to execute efficiently and we have received great feedback from our clients. Happy to have had a successful outing and we are open to great collaborations as they come our way.

Happy workers day to the team that keeps the machine running. ❤️❤️

It’s that Suya type of Weekend. If you want to make some at home. Buy a chunk of stewing beef and freeze then slice thinly, season with your yaji, ginger, bouillon, garlic powder, chili pepper and onion powder if you have. If you want to make it a tad more interesting add some iru powder but very tiny. Grill on open fire smearing oil on it intermittently till ready and enjoy.

Your weekend snacks could include these iru and cheese yam fries. Make a cheese melt with iru and drizzle over your yam fries and thank me later. For those that don’t know, iru is fermented locust beans that has flavors reminiscent of truffles. It gives a unique pungent profile to dishes that may be off putting for some and absolutely divine for others. My recommendation will be use the dehydrated powdered version. It’s not as pungent in smell that way.

Throwback to when I discovered how to make tuiles. I wanted to make tuiles out of everything. Here I used shoko liquid to make tuiles as a plating interpretation of pounded yam and efo riro.

Happy New Year Everyone, I hope we enjoyed the holidays and we are recharged and ready to take on this new year. There were so many lessons in food and business last year but the biggest one that stood out to me was a concept also in the bible about being unequally yoked and it applies strongly in business. People may be great at what they do and their skills may be even necessary for your business but their values do not align with yours and therefore you have no business partnering with them. You are better off finding the person that you have shared values with and has a fraction of the skills than immersing yourself in the wrong partnership. Be inquisitive, be open minded but also guard your heart in business. I wish you all the best in this new business year and hope the best for you all. What did you learn last year?

2022 was quite the year, I want to do a full video just talking through it but for now, I wish everyone increased success and growth in 2023.

This week I learned that it is very important to educate a client on the delicate nature of food service delivery. It can make or break the reputation of your brand. The journey from production to service is a long one and for people without a food background, it can be daunting to explain the importance of cutting certain things close to time.

A little tip that I am taking on my journey with me;
for the program of the day.
your staff for set up and ex*****on
things to a 3-5 step plating process at ex*****on time, having double the hands.
matter how touching your clients story may be, plan for the comfort of your brand and excellent service delivery.
is also a valid answer

Maiden Edition of Brunch and Bubbles at .af 😁😁😁 thank you to everyone that came out! Watch out for the next one.

Is your breakfast bowl a yoghurt bowl or an oatmeal bowl or none of the above 😅

Are you looking forward to the weekend? I’m here for enjoyment this weekend so if you fit that category invite me please 😁

📸 : .ng

Yesterday the wonderful people at invited me to speak to a brilliant group of girls about “The power of industry and cultivating an entrepreneurial mind. I like to introduce myself as the adjacent chef with 2 entrepreneurship degrees and most days I live up to that title 😊 some things we talked about were “what is your why? , if money were not an issue, what would you do and what would you like to change in the world. To do that, what would be your definition of success? What in the grand scope would be important to you? What is possible given your means? Setting small achievable goals as you go on in life because you will meet and smash those goals!” I learned a lot from these brilliant ladies and I pray they take the world by storm given all the hope they have! Thank you to the sheevolution team for having me

Make sure when you cook, cook with joy!

The softness of the tozo, the sweetness of the mash, the crunch of the vegetables, the earthiness of the beetroot, the savory of the sauces, the beauty of the garnish!

One of the meals I served on the day was themed after the movie terminal list. The main character had 12 people to take off his list(well eliminate) and he had loved ones at home to protect so in my interpretation, I had the sweet potato mash represent his loved ones. I had the tozo represent him as we all know tozo sometimes is tough to cook so I cooked it for 12 hours. I then used a beetroot purée to represent the battlefield as blood will typically be shed on the battlefield and I used my vegetables(crunchy) to represent his weapons. This meal was named the 12 hour tozo battlefield!!!

This weekend with was certainly one for the books! I will come back with a full story

📸:

Red Velvet Puff Puff and Cream Cheese

Light dinner of spaghetti and minced meat herb sauce and my fav, plantain 😁 what’s on your table?

Part of the work I do is curating culinary experiences for brands and my most recent project has carried me to Ghana as well. The Crazy Daisies franchise has locations in Lagos and Ghana. The Lagos location opened last year but the food experience will launch this year. Ghana somehow beat us to that. I promise it is not the jollof haha. Thankful for a successful launch. Hiring and training chefs and staff has been no small feat but it is up and running in its beta stage so if you are in Accra, please visit Crazy Daisies in North Labone.