Of Skins and Snacks: The Peppered Ponmo Delicacy

Buying ponmo

Cow skin, locally called "ponmo", is a favourite beef part enjoyed as a side dish, snack and condiment in south-western Nigeria. It is inexpensive and, perhaps for this reason, very common in restaurants and eateries. Buyers look out for either soft or thick ponmo for their crunchiness.

Colourful condiment

When cooked in peppered sauce, ponmo can be enjoyed as a snack in-between meals or as a part of "small chops" (finger food) served at parties and events. 

Pre-boiling ponmo

To be hygienic and edible, ponmo needs to be boiled for a while to kill the bacteria and to make it soft and easily digestible. Thin and soft ponmo can also be bought directly from the market.

Preparing your peppers for a wonderful flavour

For a wonderful pepper flavour, a mixture of ata-rodo (scotch bonnet) and sombo (chili pepper) is used in making the peppered sauce. Select and wash pieces of both peppers for a hot spicy sauce.

Beating down the heat with tomatoes

To beat down the heat from the peppers, add a few tomatoes. A bowl of about 15 peppers only requires 3 to 5 tomatoes.

Blended mixture

The peppers and tomatoes are then blended together. Onion, ginger and garlic could be blended into the puree for a flavourful sauce. To retain a rough texture, do not blend for too long.

Onions added to the mix

Although onions can be added to the mix of peppers and tomatoes, they need to be added separately.

Sliced onions

The choice of onions are sliced, washed and made ready to be fried with hot oil.

Frying onions and adding red sauce

The onions should be fried separately in oil before the pepper sauce (the pepper and tomato mixture) is added to the frying pan.

Adding seasoning

Seasoning is added to the frying pan mixture to improve the flavour and taste.

Here comes the ponmo

After a while, the ponmo can be added to the frying mixture and allowed to fry for about 30-45 minutes depending on the level of crunchiness desired.

All aboard!

The content of the frying pan is continuously stirred even while the ponmo is added.

Almost ready

The ponmo is allowed to cook and mix properly with the sauce so that it takes as much of the taste and flavour as possible.