Recipe #70: Agusi Frowee (melon seed) Stew with Fish

I have referred several times in the past to nutritious, delicious agushi (aka agusi, agushie, egusi) seeds.Today's recipe is a classic stew that combines the seeds with fish. There are, of course, other versions using meat or poultry, but this is my favorite.

I'm posting 2 versions of the same recipe: one is a richer, more nuanced, and expensive version. It uses salted cod, smoked fish, real agusi seeds, fresh tomatoes and peppers and palm oil; the other, is faster, cheaper, and lighter and uses canned tomatoes, canned fish, dried pepper, pumpkin seeds, and peanut (or canola) oil. Take your pick, or combine elements of each in your preferred version. The green seeds in the photo below are the pumpkin seeds, the white ones the agushi seeds

Let's begin with the slightly more complicated, fancier one.

Recipe #70: Agusi Frowee (melon seed) Stew with Fish

Version 1: Assemble ingredients

• 4 oz agushi seeds (about a cup), ground or unground
• 7-8 ounces of smoked fish (I'm using smoked whiting today), after bones and skin are removed
• 2 good-sized ripe tomatoes (plus a Tablespoon of tomato paste if you like)
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of palm oil (dzomi if available)
• a small piece of salted cod (about an inch cube, about 1/3 of an ounce), or koobi (salted tilapia)
• 1 large onion (about a cup, chopped)
• fresh red pepper to taste

Prepare the ingredients:

1.  If the agushi is not ground, grind it in a blender. Mix it with a cup of water and set aside until later.
2. To remove some of the salt, I rinse and soak the salted fish in hot water while I prepare the other ingredients.
3. If the fish has bones and skin remove them and discard.
4. Peel and chop the onion.
5. Prepare the pepper and garlic (I grind mine together in a blender with about a Tablespoon of water). You will need to judge your preference for heat. You can always adjust the heat later by adding more ground dried red pepper later.
6. Chop the tomatoes (if you want to be extra fancy, peel and seed them first--drop in scalding water, then cold, to remove the peelings, and grind them in a blender). Mix in a Tablespoon of tomato paste if you like.
7. Heat a heavy frying pan on the stove top, add the oil and chopped onions, stir well, then add the salted fish.
8. Fry together on medium heat for several minutes, then add the pepper and garlic and cook a couple more minutes, then add the tomatoes and tomato paste.
9. Stir in the smoked fish.
10. Stir the agushi to see that all of the lumps are gone.
11. Stir the agushi-water mixture into the stew, lower the heat, then cover and allow it to simmer, without stirring, for half an hour.
12. The cooked agushi will look a little like scrambled eggs.
13. If you're like me, go ahead and skim off any oil that has risen to the top (or just stir it back into the stew) and check the seasonings. Add some dried red pepper if it isn't spicy enough for you. I cannot imagine it needing more salt, but add some if you must.

This stew goes well with rice, ampesi (plain boiled starchy vegetables like yam, potatoes, plantains, banku, or kenkey. (Note: You can search Betumiblog for recipes for banku and kenkey).

Here is the second, lighter, cheaper, and faster version:

Version 2

Assemble the ingredients:

• In place of the smoked fish, substitute a 15 oz can of mackerel
• In place of the agushi substitute raw pumpkin seeds
• In place of the fresh tomatoes, substitute tomato puree (a cup), OR 2 or 3 Tablespoons of tomato paste mixed with a little water OR a small can of tomato sauce
• simply slice, rather than chop, the onions
• Do not bother soaking the salt fish
• In place of the palm oil, substitute any white oil like canola or peanut of safflower (I avoid olive oil because of its distinctive flavor) and reduce the amount to 1/4 cup (2 oz)
• In place of the fresh hot peppers, substitute dried ground red pepper to taste (about 3/4 teaspoon to begin)
• Omit the garlic

Follow the same basic steps as above, omitting any steps unnecessary due to using already processed ingredients:  grind the pumpkin seeds,  mix with a cup of water in a small bowl, chop the onion, open the can of mackerel. Heat the oil in a frying pan on medium heat and add the onion and salt fish. Cook a few minutes, then add the tomato puree (or paste, sauce), cook a couple more minutes, then add the canned fish and dried red pepper. Stir the water-pumpkin seed mixture into the stew, lower heat and cover and allow to simmer for 30 minutes without stirring.

My nephews Sam (left) and Ernest (right) stopped by at the beginning of this 4th of July holiday weekend, and sampled both versions. I topped some leftover coconut rice with the stew, and steamed a little fresh spinach on the side.

Sam added salt to the first version; Ernest found it a little too salty. Ernest added red pepper flakes to his; Sam found it spicy enough.

Both found either acceptable, but preferred the richer version (as do I).  Sam said of the second one "This is lighter. Americans will love it."

Recipe #18: Bean Stew w/smoked fish

Here's another easy-to-make stew that is perfect with tatale. It also pairs wonderfully with fried ripe plantain, boiled rice, or plain gari.

In Ghana bean (or "beans") stew is commonly prepared with cowpeas, especially a small red type that I would have preferred to use when I made my tatale a few weeks ago. I usually get them from an international market that carries Hispanic foods, but I was out. Sometimes I use aduki beans but they take a longer time to cook.

However, I always have some dried black-eyed peas on the shelf. (Okay, they're not really "beans," but people call them that). If you're not a purist, you can always use frozen or canned cowpeas to speed things up even more. I hadn't pre-soaked my beans, so I just washed and picked over them, brought some water to a boil for a couple of minutes, let it sit for an hour, then drained the water, added more, simmered them until they were soft, and continued with the recipe.

You'll need:
1. a cup of dried cowpeas washed, soaked and cooked (or subsitute one or two cans or packages of frozen black-eyed peas),
2. a medium onion, peeled and chopped or sliced
3. an 8-oz can of tomato sauce (or substitute a cup of fresh chopped or canned tomatoes [pureed if possible], even a small can of tomato paste and half a cup of water will work),
4. 1/2 pound of smoked fish, with skin and bones removed (I like mackerel best, but whiting haddock, whitefish, trout, etc. all work),
5. about 1/4-1/3 cup palm oil if you can possibly get it (or substitute peanut oil or other vegetable oil). If you're new to palm oil, you can use half palm oil and half other vegetable oil). BTW, olive oil is not a West African cooking oil. I don't know of any olive trees in Ghana.
6. 1/2 t (or to taste) salt, optional
7. 1/8 - ? t dried ground red pepper to taste (or substitute fresh chopped hot chili peppers)
8. a couple cloves of garlic, minced (optional)
9. a little fresh ginger, grated (optional)

You'll probably begin to notice a pattern if you've been following my stew recipes (meat stew with browned flour or okra, eggplant fish stew) or even the base for things like potluck gari foto. As I've explained elsewhere, one of the basic building blocks in Ghanaian cooking is frying "the ingredients" together to make something similar to Brazil's refogado.

When your cowpeas are ready, and your ingredients prepared:
Heat the oil in a heavy frying pan and add the onion, and cook for a few minutes on medium heat until it's translucent.

If using other fresh seasonings, like ginger or garlic, or fresh chili peppers, add them and stir and cook for another minute before adding the tomato sauce (or tomato, etc.). Break the fish into pieces and add it to the stew, along with the beans and a cup of water and dried red pepper and salt, if using. Remember that the salt in the fish will take a few minutes to flavor the stew. Stir well and allow to simmer while the flavors blend and the sauce thickens. After about 20 minutes taste and adjust salt and pepper if necessary.

Some people mash some of the beans before adding them to the stew, and you can do that if you like a thicker stew.

This is a great "every day" stew: it's easy to make, it freezes well, it tastes even better the next day, and it's easy to make substitutions (use smoked ham cubes or ham hocks if you don't like fish, or use mushrooms to make a vegetarian version, maybe flavored with a little soy sauce? It's also easy to make a large quantity and freeze some for another day to make a quick meal. Also, you can easily add in anything you like (e.g., chopped okra or eggplant or zucchini.). I often omit the ginger and garlic if I'm in a rush. I imagine if you use garlic powder you could try substituting that, but I always have fresh on hand. Fresh ginger has a completely different flavor to me from dried, but ginger is easy to grate and freeze (like in a mini ice cube tray) to always have on hand, too.

I haven't tried it, but bet this would be a good slow cooker recipe if you omitted frying the onions and tomatoes, used ham hocks, and didn't precook the beans. Let me know if any of you try it that way.

Happy cooking.