Name: Suya (Skewered Beef in a Dry Peanut and Chilli Rub)
Prep time: 45 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 1 h
Yield: 4 servings
Cuisine: Nigerian
Ingredients: 600 g beef topside or sirloin; 2 tbsp groundnut oil; 80 g kuli-kuli; 2 tbsp cayenne; 1 tbsp paprika; 2 tsp ground ginger; 2 tsp garlic powder; 2 tsp onion powder; 2 tsp salt; 1 stock cube; 1 onion; 2 tomatoes; 100 g cabbage; 100 g roasted peanuts

Ingredients

4servings

The meat
beef topside or sirloin · sliced 3-5mm against the grain600 g
groundnut oil · glue for the powder, not a marinade2 tbsp
Yaji (the rub)
kuli-kuli · defatted peanut cake, pounded to a powder80 g
cayenne · Nigerian chilli is far hotter; scale to taste2 tbsp
paprika · for colour1 tbsp
ground ginger2 tsp
garlic powder2 tsp
onion powder2 tsp
salt2 tsp
stock cube · all but standard in Nigeria; leave it out if you prefer1
To serve
onion · raw, sliced thin1
tomatoes · raw, sliced2
cabbage · shredded, optional100 g
If you cannot get kuli-kuli
roasted peanuts · ground, then pressed in kitchen paper to take the oil out100 g

Steps

Freeze the beef about 30 minutes, then slice it 3-5mm thick against the grain. Half-frozen is what makes thin slices possible.
⏲ 30 min
Lay the slices between sheets of plastic and beat them thinner still. A dry seasoning only ever sits on the surface, so more surface and less thickness is the seasoning (what marinades do).
⏲ 10 min
Pound the kuli-kuli and mix it with the cayenne, paprika, ginger, garlic and onion powders, salt and crumbled stock cube. If it clumps when you squeeze it, there is oil left in it — press it between sheets of kitchen paper.
⏲ 10 min
Brush the meat with the barest film of groundnut oil. Oil first, powder second. This is not a marinade; it is somewhere for the powder to hold.
⏲ 5 min
Press half the yaji onto both sides and leave it 20-30 minutes. Keep the other half back.
⏲ 25 min
Thread the meat onto skewers in folds rather than flat, which keeps the thin edges from drying out (grilling).
⏲ 10 min
Grill over high heat, 3-4 minutes a side. There is no sugar anywhere in the rub, so full heat from the start is fine — that is where it parts company with basted yakitori. If dripping fat flares up, move the skewers to the cooler side.
⏲ 4 min
The moment they come off the fire, dust them with the reserved yaji while they are hot. That second coat is never cooked, so the peanut and the chilli in it are still aromatic.
⏲ 1 min
Serve with raw sliced onion and tomato. Their crunch and sweetness are what the dry heat of the rub is built against.
⏲ 5 min

Variations

Tsire is the Hausa word for the same skewers; suya is the name that travelled.
Balangu and bujera: Hausa grilled meat done without the rub — the salt-only end of the same tradition.
Cuts: beef is the default, but chicken, goat, ram and gizzard are all normal, and a plate often carries several at once.
Kilishi: the same spicing brushed onto meat sliced paper-thin and then dried. Suya's jerky sibling, and it keeps for weeks.

More detail and the reasons why (1)

Across West Africa: it is eaten in Niger, Cameroon, Ghana and Chad as well, but it is above all a characteristic Hausa dish, most closely associated with the Hausa of northern Nigeria.

Tips

The opposite end from nyama choma, where salt is essentially the whole seasoning. Same charcoal, same skewer idea, opposite extremes.

More detail and the reasons why (6)

Salted meat and marinated meat are different dishes on the same fire (grilling): salt only for yakiniku, marinated for bulgogi and jerk chicken. Suya is neither. Nothing is steeped in liquid and the meat does not go on bare; it goes on wearing a dry powder pressed into it.
Why the peanut has to be defatted is the whole dish. Roasted peanut is about half fat. Ground and put on meat over fire, that fat melts and runs, and fat dripping into flame is not a good sear developing: those flames deposit soot. The oil pressed out, kuli-kuli is a dry powder — it stays where it is put and toasts rather than burns.
Satay solves the same problem the other way round. It keeps the peanut away from the fire altogether and pours it over as a sauce once the skewers are cooked. Suya is the dish that found a way to put peanut and fire together.
Having no sugar in it is what sets the heat. Sugar in a marinade usually goes on at the end, because sugar starts burning around 150°C. There is none in yaji, so full heat from the start is available and colour can be chased freely.
The rub goes on twice. The half applied before cooking takes the heat and becomes the crust; the half thrown on as it leaves the fire is never cooked and stays aromatic. Do it once and you lose one or the other.
Slicing thin is how it is seasoned. A marinade reaches only one to three millimetres in (what marinades do). A dry rub does not get in at all, so the only lever is thickness — less of it, and more surface for the powder to sit on.

The basics behind this dish

Cooking basics →

More of the same kind

Main course →

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