Around the House, kpakpo shito and water leaf

Fall is now arriving in the US. Nights are getting colder, yet the warm memories of a month in Ghana during June and July are still strong.

Here are a few photos from my time there. On the right and below are photos of the kpakpo shito bushes planted in our yard in Baatsona (near Tema). Kpakpo shito (shito means "pepper" in Ga) is my favorite pepper from Ghana. I've tried unsuccessfully to locate seeds in the U.S., with several local organic farmers willing to grow them for me.

If anyone knows how to legally import them from Ghana, please let me know. Kpakpo shito has a wonderful, almost sweet fragrance, along with a spicy heat. I didn't have to buy peppers at all the 4 weeks I was in Ghana! I wait for them to turn red before cooking with them, either whole and "popped" between my fingers, or seeded and sliced.

My son Yaw Dankwa also planted some greens he brought from Nigeria, called "water leaf" or what sounded like "boca-boca" in Ghana. They have small purple flowers. He mentioned that they can be cooked like cocoyam leaves (nkontomire), and that in Nigeria people sometimes also just cut the leaves up and add them to food. I never had a chance to cook some this trip, but did check in with the knowledgeable Ozoz Sokoh, of Kitchen Butterfly fame, who confirmed that water leaf  is ". . . an aggressive plant and I'm less than happy with it at the moment as it overtakes every thing with its self propagation. Worse than mint! . . . But we use it in soups, with other greens (pumpkin leaves and another veggie we call 'green'), with ground melon, stirred into tomato sauces aka stew." She also provided a link for more information, including its history and scientific family and name, Portulacaceae, Talinum fruticosum (T. triangulare).  Apparently the leaves are  loaded with vitamins A and C, calcium and iron, and are grown in many tropical areas of the world besides West Africa.
Thank you again, Ozoz.

Recipe #33 Aboboe and Recipe #34 Adayi (boiled and pureed cowpeas)

There is a VERY simple, everyday kind of dish that the Ewe (ey-vey) people and other Ghanaians enjoy. (The Ewe people are also found in parts of Togo and Benin.)This dish is called abob⊃e or aboboe in Twi, ab⊃b⊃i in Ga, azinogoe b⊃b⊃  in Ewe. It is also known simply as stewed beans, boiled beans or bobo. 

The "beans" are humble cowpeas (vigna unguiculata), which likely originated in West Africa. They lend themselves easily to crockpot cooking, and that is how I prepared them recently, even though in Ghana we cooked them on a stovetop. 

Recipe #33: Aboboe (boiled cowpeas)

Ingredients

2 cups (a little less than 1 pound) of black-eyed peas

about 6 cups of water

gari for serving (if available)

ripe plantain (optional)

Rinse and pick over 2 cups of black-eyed peas (or use a whole pound bag)

Put them into a crockpot with 6 cups of water.

Cover and cook for several hours on high or overnight on low.

Before serving add a couple of teaspoons of salt, or to taste. I did not have to add any more water, but it's always a good idea to keep an eye on it if you're cooking on top of the stove or on the high setting in a crockpot.

Variations: add a large onion whole, and a little red pepper (fresh or dried) to the beans as they cook.

Serving suggestions:

The beans are good simply served with a couple of tablespoons of dry gari sprinkled over the top, and even better with a little flavored oil (or good quality dzomi palm oil, if you have access to that) poured over them before sprinkling the gari, and some shito served on the side, if you have any.

Alternatively, you can make a simple tomato gravy (that recipe is coming--it can be made ahead and kept in the refrigerator) and add any leftover meat or fish or vegetable, and mix the beans with that before topping with gari.

Ripe plantain is traditionally fried and served alongside the beans, but Barbara (and I) grill or boil it and serve it that way. Totally delicious, and a nice change from chili.

Recipe #34: Adayi (Pureed Cowpeas)

In Ghana, Barbara and I didn't prepare adayi, but Barbara told me that you cook the cowpeas the same way, then when they are done and most of the water has boiled away, you simply blend the beans into a paste and eat them with gari. 

That's how I made it here, but later I was looking at the 1953 Gold Coast Nutrition and Cookery book, and saw that it has an Ewe recipe that is more complicated: first it says to soak the cowpeas ovenight (1 cigarette tin, which is 1/2 pound), dry them in the sun, grind the beans and remove the skins, cook them well in boiling water until they are soft, then add salt. The recipe then says to heat some coconut oil (1 1/2 U.K. gills, or about .9 U.S. cup), dampen some gari (2 cigarette tins, or a pound) with a little water and the heated oil, and serve it hot with the beans. I'm thinking that one could try subsituting the preskinned and/or preground beans, but the pureed, unskinned ones I made worked fine for this novice.

Have fun, and happy cooking.

 

Recipe #30: Crockpot Shito (Mako Tuntum/Black Pepper)

Well, the shito  [SHE-toe] cooked (see yesterday's post) in the crock pot about 24 hours. I stirred it regularly as Gloria instructed, but it never cooked down and turned dark. I telephoned her in Canada to confirm the crock pot should stay covered. I'm still figuring out how to adjust the crockpot cooking, but since I have  time constraints today I finally finished it off on the stove top, as I always have before. Please note that Gloria also cooks shito in a slow oven.

Recipe #30: Simple Crockpot Shito (adapted from Gloria Mensah)

Ingredients

1/4 cup ground dried chili pepper (cayenne)

2 cups crushed canned tomatoes (I crushed 2 cups worth from a 28 oz or 800 g can of Italian plum tomatoes, lifting the tomatoes out of the liquid first and then squeezing them through my fingers into a small bowl)

2 cups (slightly less than one 15 oz or 425 g can) canned mackerel (or tuna), drained and blotted dry with paper towels, flaked

1 cup of dried shrimp (one 3.5 oz, or 100 g package), rinsed, blotted, and dried in a low (200 degree F) oven [NOTE: if dried shrimp are not available, substitute fresh shrimp, first dried in a slow oven]

2 large onions, peeled and cut into chunks for blending (or grated)

1/4 cup ginger paste (from blended fresh ginger or an Indian or international store)

1/4 cup garlic paste (from blended fresh garlic, or an Indian or international store)

1 cup of vegetable oil, such as canola

 

Step-by-step Directions

Prepare the canned mackerel. One of the secrets to making shito is to remove all the water, so I figure  the less water you use in the beginning, the better. That's why I dried the drained canned mackerel with paper towels before using my fingers to flake it.

Similarly, I rinsed the dried shrimp before using them, blotted them dry with a paper towel, and then spread them out on a cookie sheet in a 200 degree F oven for an hour or so while I did the other prep work. Gloria says she can prepare this in 10 minutes, and then just has to be around to stir it from time to time! I'm guessing she doesn't bother with all the rinsing and blotting I did.

In a large bowl, add the 1/4 cup dried ground hot pepper to the flaked mackerel (remember that West African ground hot red pepper will be hotter than typical North American cayenne pepper). It may be cheaper to buy dried chili peppers and grind your own in a blender as I used to do, but this is a messy task that makes for a lot of sneezing! After making this once, you can adjust the pepper for a milder or spicier shito according to your preference (One could likely substitute paprika for some of the hot pepper to make a milder version).

Crush the 2 cups of tomatoes, and add 1 cup to the mackeral/pepper bowl. Use the second cup of tomatoes to blend the onions. I had to use a smaller food processor cup on my blender and do this in several batches. I'd bet, though, you could also just grate the onions into the bowl with the other ingredients.

In a couple of batches, grind the dried shrimps and add them to the bowl. A rubber spatula comes in helpful in getting all these ingredients out of the blender.

Stir in the 1/4 cup blended ginger and 1/4 blended garlic (those jars from the Indian section of our local international market were a huge time saver), and finally the 1 cup oil. According to Gloria's directions, you should be able to add everything to the crockpot, cover it and cook it on low for 12-18 hours, stirring every few hours. It didn't work that way for me, though.

I'm still perfecting the cooking part of this. It may be that my "low" on my slow cooker is lower than on Gloria's. It did not cook in the time she said, so I finished cooking most of it on the stovetop (first medium, then low heat, stirring constantly for about 30 to 45 minutes). If you have this problem, I recommend a seasoned cast iron pan if you have one (and a wooden spoon for stirring), though I also cooked some in a nonstick skillet and that worked fine as well, though it's a little harder to regulate the temperature. The shito is done when it is dark brown, but not burned (constant stirring and pressing is another trick to making shito), and all the water is cooked out. Remember that it will cook a little bit more in the pan even after it is taken off the heat. Another possibility for cooking this in the crockpot might be to remove the lid from the crockpot at some point to allow the liquid to escape more easily.

When the shito is cooked, allow it to cool completely and store it in glass jars. See note below about oil. If you know any students from Ghana, a small jar of shito and a little bag of gari would likely make a far more welcome gift over the holidays than any candy cane or chocolate chip cookies! The flavor is wonderful (as I said yesterday, dried shrimp is favored in Asia for its umami flavor). I just wish I had some kenkey handy.

I'll post my own "classic" shito recipe soon, but not until after the Thanksgiving holidays. In the meantime, have a wonderful Thanksgiving, and remember to share what you have with others.

NOTES:

I've always used tomato paste before, and when I asked Gloria why she uses crushed tomatoes she said one could substitute 1 cup of tomato paste for the canned tomatoes. Trusting her intuition, I asked her why she doesn't use tomato paste since it's simpler. She said that she finds the paste gives too "sweet" a flavor to the shito.

Shrimp: I have Ghanaian friends who skip the mackerel altogether and make shito using only flaked shrimp from Thailand. This is even easier, but I don't like the 2% sugar the Thai people add to their dried shrimp. We also have a vegetarian family locally who make a great shito using seaweed in place of the dried shrimp and fish.

Also, many Ghanaians nowadays will include shrimp or other seasoning cubes added to their shito. Oil: One of the reasons shito does not spoil is that there is usually a coating of oil on top of it. Therefore, you might like to keep this in the refrigerator, even though that would likely not be the case in Ghana. Or, increase the amount of oil.

And yes, this has a strong fish odor, so cook it near a fan (or, like Gloria, outside).I happen to like the smell. It reminds me of Ghana.