Ghanaian Recipes

Corn Dough Porridge

Corn dough porridge is a Ghanaian breakfast, particularly in the south, made from fermented corn dough thinned with water and cooked with grains of selim until thick. It is closely related to koko and to ogi across the border in Nigeria, all built on the same fermented maize. Fermentation is what gives it its character. Corn is soaked, ground and left to sour for several days, which produces a distinctly tangy flavour and makes the grain easier to digest. Fermented corn dough is sold ready made at Ghanaian and Nigerian markets and grocers, in blocks or bags, and making it from scratch takes days rather than minutes. Grains of selim, also called negro pepper or hwentia, is the spice that makes this Ghanaian rather than generic. It is a long dark pod with a smoky, slightly bitter, aromatic flavour, crushed into the water before the corn goes in. The other technique that matters is straining: the dough is slaked with water and passed through a strainer before it meets the heat, which is the only reliable way to avoid lumps. It is served hot with sugar, and often with milk, roasted nuts or coconut flakes.

30 minEasyGhana

Recipe by Amanda Dadson · Africook

Easy and Simple Way to Make Banku

Banku is fermented corn and cassava dough, cooked to a smooth, slightly sour mass and shaped into balls. The sourness is the whole identity of the dish. Unfermented, the same ingredients produce something else entirely, which is why the two to five days the dough spends fermenting are not a preliminary to making banku but the making of it. The name is Ga-Dangme, and banku belongs most closely to the Ewe, Fante and Ga-Adangbe peoples of southern Ghana, though it is eaten throughout the country. Its most recognised pairing is with grilled tilapia and hot pepper sauce, a combination that functions as a national plate: the sour dough against the freshwater fish and the raw heat of the pepper. It is eaten with the hands, in pieces pinched off the ball and used to lift soup or sauce. Ghanaians distinguish banku from akple, its close Ewe relative, and from fufu, which is a different preparation entirely, and those distinctions matter to the people who make them. Fermentation is what sets banku apart from the other starches on the same table.

★★★★★Highest Rated

2 daysMediumGhana · West African

Recipe by Jennifer · Africook

Kenkey

Kenkey is fermented maize dough, wrapped in banana leaf or corn husk and steamed into firm parcels. It is sour, and the sourness is the whole character of it. The fermentation runs one to three days before anything is cooked, and a kenkey that has been rushed is immediately identifiable to anyone who eats it regularly. It comes from the Ga people of Accra and the surrounding coast, who have been making it for centuries, and it has spread across Ghana without losing that origin. Ga kenkey and Fante kenkey are recognised as distinct: the wrapping differs, and so does the ratio of fermented to fresh dough, which changes how sour the finished parcel is. Kenkey is street food in the most functional sense. It is bought in its wrapping, which serves as the plate, and eaten with fried fish, shito and a raw pepper and tomato grind, standing up or sitting on a bench. The wrapping is not presentation; it is what the dough is steamed in and what keeps it for days without refrigeration. That combination of sour dough, hot pepper and fried fish is one of the most recognisable plates in West Africa.

★★★★★Highest Rated

55 minMediumGhana

Recipe by Laila · Africook

Waakye

Waakye is rice and beans cooked together with dried millet or sorghum stalk leaves, which leach a deep reddish brown into the grain and give the dish both its colour and its name. It is Ghana's most loved street breakfast, and in Accra and Kumasi the waakye seller is a neighbourhood institution whose location is known, whose quality is debated and whose loyalty is genuinely held. Sellers begin before dawn and often sell out by mid morning. The dish is bought wrapped in leaves and assembled to the customer's specification from a wide spread of accompaniments: shito, the dark Ghanaian pepper and fish sauce, gari, egg, spaghetti known as talia, fried plantain, avocado, salad, stew and fried fish or meat. A full waakye plate is substantial enough to carry someone through a working day, which is precisely what it is for. The waakye leaf is the ingredient that cannot be substituted. It is the dried leaf sheath of a West African sorghum, called poporo oka in Yoruba and adako in Togo, and it functions as a colourant rather than a flavouring, with the quantity used determining how deep the colour runs. Black eyed beans are traditional and jasmine rice is the Ghanaian preference. The dish is eaten across West Africa under other names, as wanke in Lagos and ayimolou in Togo.

★★★★★Highest Rated

1 hr 15 minEasyGhana

Recipe by Cuisine228 · Africook