Tatale
Overview
Tatale is the Ghanaian plantain pancake, made from plantains so ripe their skins have blackened, mashed with onion, ginger and pepper, bound with corn flour and fried in spoonfuls. It is street food and a side dish, and it is sometimes called the golden pancake for its colour. It exists because of thrift. Overripe plantain is too soft to fry as slices and too sweet to use as a starch, and tatale is what was worked out to use it. That origin is common to a great many good dishes and it is worth stating rather than glossing over. Its traditional partner is aboboi, the Bambara bean stew, and the two are eaten together as a complete meal across Ghana. It is also served warm as an appetizer with beans in various forms. It is eaten in Nigeria as well. The source claims a link between the dish and Tatale, a district in northern Ghana. That district exists, but the connection to the dish is not something the record supports, and it is flagged rather than repeated as fact.
AFN Heritage Note
Tatale is a Ghanaian pancake made from overripe plantain, conventionally served with aboboi, the Bambara bean stew. It is also eaten 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
Mash the plantains to a soft consistency with a masher or hand mixer.
- 2
Cut the pepper and onions into very small pieces.
- 3
Add the pepper and onions to the mix along with a little ginger and salt to taste.
- 4
Add about 3 cups of maize flour and mix well into a bound texture.
- 5
Let the mixture stand for about 30 minutes.
- 6
Fill a pot with peanut oil to a depth of about 5cm.
- 7
When the oil is hot, use a large spoon to make round scoops from the mixture and fry them on both sides until golden brown.
- 8
Drain on kitchen paper before serving as a snack or a side dish.
Africook’s Notes
- Use plantains that are genuinely black. Yellow plantain is not sweet enough or soft enough, and tatale exists specifically to use fruit that has gone past frying.
- Let the mixture rest the full 30 minutes. It firms up as the flour hydrates and is much easier to handle.
- Add the flour gradually. Plantains vary in wetness and the mixture should hold its shape on a spoon rather than run off it.
- Chop the onion and pepper very finely. Large pieces make the pancakes break apart in the oil.
- Peanut oil is what the recipe specifies and is common in Ghanaian frying, which means it carries a peanut allergen. Any neutral oil works instead.
- Aboboi, the Bambara bean stew, is the traditional partner and the two together make a full meal.
Reviews
Be the first to rate this recipe
Cooked it? Your rating helps the next person decide whether to try it.
No reviews on this one yet. If you have cooked it, yours would be the first.
You Might Also Like
Browse all Ghanaian recipes →
Easy and Simple Way to Make Banku
Garden Egg Stew (Earthenware Bowl Method)
Kontomire Stew
