Ghanaian Recipes

From Kontomire Stew to Kenkey, Palmnut Soup (Abenkwan) to Ghana Jollof Rice. Everything Ghanaian cooks, as it is cooked at home.

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Nkatenkwan

Nkatenkwan is Ghana's peanut soup, and it is one of the country's most recognised dishes. Chicken is simmered with whole onions, tomatoes, ginger and kpakpo shito peppers, the softened vegetables are blended back into the broth, and a separately prepared peanut sauce is stirred through and simmered until the peanut oil rises to the surface. Peanuts are not indigenous to Africa. They originated in South America and were brought to the continent by the Portuguese in the sixteenth century, arriving possibly through Senegambia or through the Angola and Congo regions, and they spread from there into cooking across West, East, Southern and Central Africa. Before they arrived, Bambara beans filled a similar role, and dishes built on Bambara beans still exist alongside their peanut equivalents. Why peanuts displaced them so thoroughly is not settled. In Ghana the soup is credited to the Hausa and eaten across the whole country. It is almost always served with omo tuo, the rice balls, and it works with any fufu. Whole okra pods go in at the end as a garnish. It sits within a wide West African family of peanut soups and stews that includes maafe, domoda and tigadèguèna, all of which are made rather differently.

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50 minEasyGhana

Recipe by Blessing · Africook

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Akotonshi (Stuffed Crab)

Akotonshi is stuffed crab, and in Ghana it is feast food. Large fresh blue or red crabs are cooked whole, the meat picked out and mixed with a heavily spiced tomato and pepper base, then packed back into the cleaned shells, topped with breadcrumbs and browned under heat. The spicing is what marks it as Ghanaian rather than a generic stuffed crab. Nutmeg, cumin, cloves and thyme go in alongside dried shrimp and African bird peppers, and grains of paradise appear in some versions. Grains of paradise, Aframomum melegueta, is a West African spice related to cardamom that gave the Guinea coast its old European name, the Grain Coast, and its presence here is a marker of the region rather than a flourish. It is a dish for occasions. Ghanaians associate it with public celebrations and family gatherings rather than with everyday cooking, partly because fresh crab bought from local fishermen is not an everyday purchase. The crab shells serve as the serving vessel, which is much of its appeal at a table, and ramekins do the job when whole crabs are not available.

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1 hrMediumGhana · West African

Recipe by Jennifer · Africook

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Shito Sauce

Shito is Ghana's dark chilli condiment, and it is one of the few West African sauces that keeps for months. Dried shrimp, ground smoked fish, chilli, onion, ginger and garlic are cooked down slowly in a large quantity of oil until the whole thing turns nearly black, and the oil that rises to the top is what preserves it. The name is simply the Ga word for pepper. It is made differently in every region and village, and it comes coarse or smooth, medium or extremely hot, depending on the household. What does not change is the smokiness, which comes from ground smoked fish and dried shrimp rather than from any smoking of the sauce itself. That combination has been compared to Malaysian sambal belacan, which works on the same principle of dried seafood cooked into chilli paste. It goes with almost everything: waakye, kenkey, plain rice, fried plantain, yam, beans. Ghanaians abroad travel with jars of it. Its keeping quality is the practical reason it exists in the quantities it does, since a batch made once will sit in the cupboard for two or three months with the oil layer intact, and in the fridge after that.

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50 minMediumGhana

Recipe by Jennifer · Africook

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Light Soup

Light soup is Ghanaian, and the name describes its body rather than its strength. It is a thin, clear, tomato-based broth with no thickener at all, no palm nut, no groundnut paste, no ground seeds, which sets it apart from most of the soups it sits beside on a Ghanaian table. It is documented as originating with the Ga-Dangme people of the Greater Accra region, and specifically as a fishermen's soup. The early form was tomato-based and made with sea fish, called aklo or aklor, cooked on the coast around Accra. Over time it broadened to take goat, lamb or chicken, and today it is as likely to be made with meat as with fish. Its reputation is partly medicinal. A hot bowl of light soup, made properly peppery, is what many Ghanaian households reach for when someone has a cold, and it is common comfort food in a way that goes beyond flavour. The standard partner is fufu, and the pairing is close to fixed, fufu and light soup is a single idea in Ghanaian eating rather than two things served together. It is also eaten with omo tuo, the rice balls, and with banku. Because there is no thickener, everything depends on the stock: the soup tastes of what went into it and has nowhere to hide.

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EasyGhana

Recipe by FoodChef · Africook

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