Ewa Agoyin
Overview
Ewa agoyin is beans cooked to complete softness, served with a dark sauce of caramelised onion, pepper and palm oil poured over the top. It is Lagos street food above all, eaten in the morning and through the afternoon, and it is almost always served with bread. The name records where it came from. Ewa is beans in Yoruba, and Agoyin refers to the Aganyin people of the Benin Republic, whose sellers and hawkers popularised the dish in Nigeria. It was originally ewa aganyin, and the shortened form took over because of how the word sounds when spoken quickly. Nigerians also use Agoyin more loosely for Beninese and Togolese people generally. Some sellers call it simply ewa g. The sauce is where the work is. Palm oil is heated until it clears, onions are caramelised in it until very dark, and parboiled tomato purée, ground pepper and crayfish go in after. That deep caramelisation is what makes the sauce black rather than red, and it cannot be hurried. The beans themselves are cooked until they collapse, which is the opposite of how beans are usually treated, and the combination of the soft plain beans with the intense sauce is the entire point.
AFN Heritage Note
Ewa agoyin, originally ewa aganyin, takes its name from the Yoruba word for beans and from the Aganyin people of the Benin Republic, whose sellers popularised the dish in Nigeria.
Ingredients
Dietary tags are provided by contributors as a guide, not verified by AFN, and they depend on the products you buy. If you have a serious allergy, check every ingredient yourself. Cooking, allergies and your own judgement
Directions
- 1
Soak the beans in cold water for 5 hours. Cook them for 5 minutes and discard that water, then rinse in cold water and set aside. This reduces the gas-inducing elements.
- 2
Chop the onions, grind the crayfish and pound the pepper.
- 3
Blend the tomatoes and cook the purée until all the water has gone from it.
- 4
Pre-cook the diced onions without any added water, to start them caramelising so they take less time later.
- 5
Cook the beans until done. For ewa agoyin they need to be very soft.
- 6
Once cooked, salt the beans, let the water dry off and set them aside.
- 7
For the agoyin sauce, pour the palm oil into a separate dry pot and heat it until it starts to smoke and the red colour turns clear. Do this over medium heat so it does not overheat too quickly.
- 8
Add the pre-cooked onions and stir continuously until fully caramelised and very dark in colour.
- 9
Add the parboiled tomato purée and stir continuously until you cannot tell the tomatoes and onions apart.
- 10
Add the pepper, crayfish, stock cubes and salt to taste, and a little water if you want.
- 11
Stir well and bring to the boil. Serve the sauce over the beans, with bread.
Africook’s Notes
- Caramelise the onions until they are genuinely dark. That colour is what makes agoyin sauce black rather than red, and stopping early gives an ordinary pepper stew.
- Cook the beans past the point you would normally stop. They should collapse completely, which is the texture the dish depends on.
- The palm oil is heated until it smokes and clears, which is deliberate. Turn off the smoke alarm first, as the source advises.
- For less smoke with a similar result, heat vegetable oil until very hot and add a small amount of palm oil to it.
- A pressure cooker cuts the bean cooking time considerably and is well worth using here.
- Soaking and discarding the first cooking water reduces the compounds that make beans hard to digest.
Questions cooks ask
What does ewa agoyin mean?
Ewa is beans in Yoruba, and Agoyin refers to the Aganyin people of the Benin Republic, whose sellers popularised the dish in Nigeria. The original name is ewa aganyin, shortened over time to how it is now usually said and written. Nigerians also use Agoyin more broadly for Beninese and Togolese people.
Why is the sauce black?
Because the onions are caramelised far past the point most recipes would stop, in palm oil heated until it clears. That long, dark caramelisation is what gives agoyin sauce its colour and its slightly bitter depth. A sauce that comes out red has not been cooked long enough.
What beans should I use?
Brown beans or black eyed peas, which are what is used in Nigeria and are sold at African grocers. What matters more is cooking them to complete softness. Any bean that collapses when overcooked will work; the dish depends on the texture rather than a particular variety.
What is it eaten with?
Bread, above all, which is how it is sold on the street in Lagos and what makes it so filling. Agidi and fried plantain are also common. It is eaten at breakfast and through the afternoon rather than as an evening meal.
Reviews
3 reviews
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Couldn't get brown beans at the African store off Bissonnet so I used regular black eyed peas from HEB. Had to cook them extra long to get that properly mashed agoyin texture. The trick with drying out the blended plum tomatoes first saved the sauce from being watery. Reminded me of childhood.
60 mins is way too short for the beans to get soft enough to mash for agoyin sha. mine took almost 2 hours on medium heat even after soaking. sauce was nice though, especially pounding the peppers instead of blending them.
that trick of pre cooking the onions dry before adding palm oil is pure gold. made the sauce so dark and rich without burning the oil. mashed my beans until they were completely smooth, e sweet sweet sha.