Thursday 9 October 2008

1st recipe -waakye and stew



Justlocs,Thandi,Meimeika, this is for you,recipe no 1, Enjoy.....


For the waakye(rice and black-eyed beans)

Take a small bag of black eye peas (beans)-about 300 gm, and add enough water to cover three inches above them. Add a large pinch of baking soda. In Ghana there are special leaves/sticks added to give a distinctive colour and flavour, but here in the west, we don't always have access to it, so baking soda does the trick. Boil until the beans are soft to the touch (not mushy, but soft). The water becomes a burgundy colour. Add about a teaspoon of salt then add enough rice about 400gm so it's 1 1/4 in under the water. Mix. Reduce heat to medium/low and cover for about 30 min, or until rice is finished cooking. You can cheat and use canned black-eye peas, as I have done before, but results are not the same. My personal trick is to add 2tbs of dark soy sauce and 1bs sesame oil for flavour and intensify the colour whilst rice/bean mixture is cooking but it's entirely optional.

For the Stew: You will need:1 tbs tomato paste(optional), 1 large onion sliced. 2 cans 435gm tomatoes, blended or chopped, 1 large stock (boulion)beef/chicken /vegetable cube, 1/2 finger ginger peeled and diced, 2 cloves garlic peeled and sliced, 1/4 tsp. Red chilli pepper, black pepper,salt/season all to taste., 1/4 cup vegetable oil. 1/2tsp Curry powder (optional). 1lb cubed meat (You can use chicken or fish).
If you are using meat....
(you can see the stew simmering away)
In a pan add the meat, garlic, ginger, 1/2 teaspoon of salt or season all, and enough water to cover all the meat. Stir all ingredients together and allow to boil until meat is tender to the bite. When meat is to your liking, fry it in heated vegetable oil , until crisp on the outside, but soft inside. This step is optional as not everyone likes their meat fried. DO NOT POUR THE WATER FROM THE BOILED MEAT AWAY. This will be used as a seasoning for your stew later.
For egg eating vegetarians.......
Boil some eggs and set aside.

In a different pan, add 2 generous tbs oil, and allow it to heat up on medium heat. Add onions and allow to fry for about 10 minutes. This will remove the water from the onions. Add the tomatoes and allow it to fry as well. Stir often, as you don't want the bottom to burn. Add the tomato paste. Mix into the onion/tomato mixture add some garlic, a little fresh chopped ginger and add about 1/2 cup of water(use water from the boiled meat if using meat.) add about 1/2 of the stock cube, 1/4 teaspoon of curry, and a little bit of the chilli pepper. Mix until it's dissolved. taste and add more pepper/seasoning if needed. Allow this to simmer until thickened, and there is a film of oil on top. Turn off the heat, peel and add boiled eggs.
Meat eaters........
Add the meat and most of the meat stock (from boiling)to the stew and stir so that meat is buried in stew. MAKE SURE YOU STIR FREQUENTLY. Allow to simmer until thickened and there's a film of oil . Keep stirring and add more water from the boiled meat if needed. Add seasoning to taste. It will be done, when it's thick with a browny-red colour.
This is usually accompanied on the side by SHITO sauce, which is a hot pepper sauce made from chillies and smoked dried shrimps and fish. You may be able to purchase it in a Ghanaian shop, but I do without it sometimes and it's just as tasty.

12 comments:

Avartsy said...

Hello, other African lady like me!
The stew sounds so much like our Nigerian way of preparing stew dishes, I also like to fry chicken, meat or even fish before putting it in the stew. Nice!

Avartsy said...

Oh, I forgot to mention I also have 2 month old sisterlocks! got carried away by the food! :-)

anthia-ofo said...

Hi Avartsy, welcome to sls. You'll enjoy your locs. I'd like to see some pics.
Yes our foods are very similar. My friend made me some moimoi, which is in my fridge this very minute. I'm trying to get the recipe off her so I can put it up here.

Titus 2 Thandi said...

Thank you!!Also sounds similar to how we do it here! Thganks for doing it..I'll try it soon for sure.

Earth Mother Guidance said...

Thank you so much for taking the time to post this. As soon as I clean out my fridge by eating it all, this will be my next venture. It looks so good.

Anonymous said...

you can get the watche leaves and stone that is used in Ghana to prepare watche here in the states at most international stores, l just bought some leaves yesterday. Some people add bay leaves to the boiling beans and some other spices which am not very sure what it is, because when l buy watche at a resturant it tastes so diffrent, you can tell its more than just beans, rice and bay leaves. l wish l knew which other spices you can add, if any one knows please let me in on it. thnaks

Kajmere said...

Thank you!
Reminds me of my first time in Africa!
I need to make this myself now.

Anonymous said...

Thank you very much for this posting. I really needed this recipe. I was at the Ghana embassy for the Town Hall Meeting with President Atta Mills yesterday and they had some Waakye afterward, but I did not get enough of it. Given that I am a bachelor, I resorted to the internet today to try to figure out how to make that tasty meal by myself .... and your post just gave me the knowledge I need to make myself a tasty meal of Waakye:)

Anonymous said...

thanks for this recipie I'm dateing someone from ghana and i want to cook for him. this is something he will love.!!!
THANKS A LOT!!!

anthia-ofo said...

@anon and anon, I hope your atempts at making waakye turned out well. You can always make your own version once you get the hang of it.

Anonymous said...

This is very helpful I lived in Ghana for 10 years and now I am in the states my mom just came back from visiting Ghana and she brought back some Waakye leaf I am very excited I cannot wait to make with the leaf this is a great day

Linda said...

I came across your blog looking for this recipe. I made this first time yesterday and it came out great. Thanks for the recipe. I live in London so was actually able to get the waakye leaves no probs. Hope you post some more dishes. Gonna try red red next :)