Garden Egg Stew (Earthenware Bowl Method)
Overview
Garden eggs are the small white and pale green African aubergines that give this stew its name and its body. They are firmer and more bitter than the large purple aubergine, and when they are cooked soft and ground down they produce a thick, faintly bitter base that no other vegetable substitutes for. This is the earthenware bowl version, and the bowl is not incidental. The pepper, onion, roasted tomato and cooked garden eggs are ground directly in an asanka, the ridged clay bowl used across Ghana, which crushes rather than purees and leaves a coarse, uneven texture. A blender produces a different dish. The other common preparation fries the components instead, and Ghanaian cooks treat the two as separate recipes rather than as variations. The stew is most closely associated with the Akan of Ghana, and its usual partners on the plate are yam or plantain. Koobi, salted and cured fish, is what supplies the savoury weight, alongside smoked mackerel and herring, and palm oil finishes it. Egg and avocado go on top. It is a dish assembled at the table as much as made at the stove.
AFN Heritage Note
The garden egg, a small African cultivar of Solanum aethiopicum and Solanum macrocarpon, has been cultivated in West Africa since before the arrival of the larger Asian aubergine, and remains a distinct crop across Ghana and Nigeria. The asanka, the ridged earthenware grinding bowl used in this preparation, is documented as a standard implement in Ghanaian kitchens.
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
Wash all the ingredients under running water.
- 2
Halve each garden egg and place in a saucepan with just enough water to cook them. Boil for 20 to 25 minutes and set aside.
- 3
In another saucepan, boil the koobi for about ten minutes.
- 4
About 8 minutes into cooking the koobi, add the smoked mackerel and smoked herring and let them steam for about two minutes. Keep the residual water.
- 5
In an earthenware bowl, grind the pepper and onion with a little salt.
- 6
Roast the tomato over a flame for about a minute, add it to the bowl and grind.
- 7
Add the cooked garden eggs to the bowl and grind until smooth.
- 8
Pour the koobi, mackerel, herring and their residual water into the bowl and stir.
- 9
Heat the palm oil and fry some onion in it for about a minute.
- 10
Pour the palm oil and fried onion over the mixture in the bowl and stir again.
- 11
Garnish with boiled egg and avocado, and serve with boiled yam.
Africook’s Notes
Personal notes from Amanda Dadson- Grind, do not blend. An asanka or any ridged mortar crushes the ingredients unevenly and that unevenness is the texture of the dish. A blender gives a smooth puree that reads as a different recipe.
- Koobi is very heavily salted. Taste before adding any salt of your own, and rinse or briefly soak the fish first if you are sensitive to it.
- Roasting the tomato over a direct flame for a minute adds a smoky note that a raw tomato does not. Do not skip it for convenience.
- The residual fish water is seasoning, not waste. Adding it is optional but it carries a great deal of the savoury depth.
- The fried version, in which the components are fried rather than ground in a bowl, is the other main Ghanaian preparation and produces a distinctly different stew.
Reviews
2 reviews
You Might Also Like
Browse all Ghanaian recipes →
Easy and Simple Way to Make Banku
Kontomire Stew
Kenkey
my ghanaian neighbor used to make this with smoked herring and red habanero peppers ground roughly in that earthenware bowl. I tried boiling the garden eggs for 20 minutes first like you wrote instead of frying them raw, and the stew turned out much smoother without absorbing too much palm oil. No be small thing o!
Steaming the smoked mackerel together with the koobi for those last two minutes gave the stock so much flavor. I had to skip adding extra salt completely because the koobi I got from Wuse market was extremely salty. Served mine with boiled yam and a slice of avocado on the side, e sweet well well.