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–+ servings
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Course Sauce
Cuisine Ghanaian
Keyword african ingredients, ghanaian recipes
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 2 hours
Soaking Time (Optional) 8 hours
Total Time 10 hours 10 minutes
Servings 4 people

Ingredients

  • 2 cups dry red cowpeas atidua (or black eye peas)
  • 1/3 cup red palm oil
  • 1 medium onion 1/2 roughly chopped, 1/2 finely diced
  • 4 tomatoes preferably plum
  • 1 large thumb size of ginger
  • 4 cloves of garlic
  • 1 scotch bonnet pepper
  • 1 bouillon cube (i used better than bouillon paste)
  • 1 tablespoon umami spice or dawa dawa/fermented locust beans recipe linked in ingredient section
  • 1 bay leaf or atiedja leaf optional

Instructions

Boil the Beans

  • Soaking helps cut down the cooking process, but not 100% necessary.
  • Boil the beans (WITHOUT SALT) in a pot with enough water to fully submerge with a few inches on top. Make sure the beans are very, very submerged in the water. Boil for 1 1/2 hours or till tender. Alternatively, you can use a pressure cooker and cook for 40 minutes on high pressure. These beans are hard, so they take more time to cook than black-eye peas.

Make the Stew base

  • In a pot at medium heat, warm up the palm oil and sauté the chopped onions in the oil.
  • Add the umami spice blend.
  • Blend the remaining onion, along with the tomatoes, ginger, garlic and scotch bonnet pepper until smooth.
  • Add the blended mixture to the pot along with the atieja and allow the stew to cook on medium-low heat for 15 minutes.
  • Once the stew is thick and the oil has settled on top add the better than bouillon, any extra salt or seasoning based on personal preference.
  • Add in the cooked beans and allow everything to simmer for 10 minutes.
  • Once the stew is ready, you can move on to boiling the yam and/or plantains.

Boil the Yam and/or Plantain

  • For yam, cut the yam into a 1 inch disks, and then peel each disk individually with a knife or potato peeler.
  • For plantain, use a sharp knife to peel it, lightly scrape the outer surface to remove the rough outer skin and split the plantain in two.
  • Wash the yam and plantain well and pour enough water to submerge everything fully. Add 1/2 teaspoon to 1 teaspoon of salt. Taste the water to make sure you can taste the salt.
  • Boil the yam and plantain partially covered for 20 minutes until tender. To check that everything is ready, poke one piece with a fork or knife to ensure it is soft.
  • Drain the yam and/or plantain from the water it was boiled in. Place the plantain in cold water to cool down and improve in texture.
  • Serve yam and/or plantain with beans stew