Tuesday, June 09, 2015

Stewed bambara beans and tatale anyone?


Have you ever had Ghana-style stewed bambara beans or groundnuts (aka aboboe)? The photo shows the dried uncooked beans/peas on the left and the cooked ones on the right. They're wonderful with ripe plantain pancakes (tatale) or fried plantain balls (kakro). And a cinch to make in a slow cooker/crockpot.

Incidentally, there is also an extensive description of bambara beans in Lost Crops of Africa: Volume II: Vegetables . Washington, DC: The National Academies Press, 2006, p. 52-73 (this can be downloaded free as a pdf if you sign up at their website.) Native to West Africa, these legumes are similar to "peanuts" in that they ripen in pods underground, and are valuable for their hardiness in tropical Africa and their high protein content. They have a mild flavor that pairs very well with sweet, ripe, spicy plantain pancakes or plantain balls, and, incidentally, are one of the few savory dishes to which I have seen some Ghanaians add sugar when eating.

Apologies for the long silence at this end. Working to complete the final edits on The Ghana Cookbook (where you'll find all three recipes). Stay tuned. (By the way, if you preorder the book from Amazon,now (it's due out in October)  there's a sizable discount ($16.57 rather than $19.95).

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