Nigerian chef Hilda Baci has made her way back into the record books after kick-starting record fever across Africa. And this time, she’s out to win the “Jollof Wars” for her home country, Guinness World Records says.
Alongside brand Gino Nigeria, Hilda cooked up the largest serving of Nigerian style jollof rice last Friday – a whopping 8,780 kg (19,356 lb 9 oz) of the delicious dish.
Real name Hilda Bassey, the star served up the dish at an event in Victoria Island, Lagos, where thousands of people were in attendance and performers took to the stage.
Jollof rice is a staple dish in West Africa and there’s a big debate about who makes it best – Ghana or Nigeria.
The debate covers the ingredients that are used as well as the preparation methods.
Rules of the record stipulated that certain ingredients had to be used, and Hilda shared the exact measurements of everything she stirred into her record-breaking dish.
Her ingredients, cooked up in a gigantic pot, included 4,000 kg of washed basmati rice (the rice had to constitute at least 80% of the total weight), 164 kg of fresh goat meat, 220 kg of Gino Asun & peppered chicken cubes, and 600 kg of her own jollof pepper mix.
She said it took “nine hours of fire, passion and teamwork” and 1,200 kg of gas to create the 16,600 plates of rice “served with joy, love and community”.
Hilda and Gino Nigeria also had to follow strict rules when it came to the distribution of the food, with none of it allowed to be wasted.
A video posted to Hilda’s Instagram account shows the jollof rice being served up to all the hungry people who’d gathered in support and had to suffer through all those amazing smells before finally being able to dig in.
Impromptu chanting of “Hilda, we want jollof” broke out, with people in attendance simply desperate for a taste
And it went down a storm, with numerous people commenting on how nice it tasted.
Hilda said of her attempt: “I didn’t realize it would be this hard and it has been a challenge. It’s a lot of hard work but really satisfying to achieve the record.
