Hidden but unforgettable foods you can't miss in Ghana

Ghanaian food is ‘one-wayed’, a phrase most people would say, but what you may not know is that there are other recipes you may not have come across or may not be familiar with.

As the world marks ‘Food day’ today, www.ghanaweb.com brings to the fore some healthy, peculiar foods that kept our grandparents alive but that are gradually fading out. Perhaps, you could try any of these, one of these days.

Kwenkwen

Call it local Jollof, it’s a nutritious meal. You will need, meat, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, dried fish, shrimp powder, spices, cooking oil, local brown rice, wheat.

Steam your meat with spices, rinse the brown rice. Fry the meat, dish it out.

Put oil into a saucepan, add tomato paste, add grounded or blended spices (ginger, pepper, onion, etc.), allow to cook, add spices, add shrimp powder, add meat, dish out a bit of the stew and add the dried fish to the rest of the sauce and add water.

Pour rinsed rice into the sauce with water, wait to cook.

Serve with the rest of the stew.



Ogoor

A delicacy mostly eaten by Ashantis.

You will need cocoyam, spices, and salted pepper, palm oil and dried fish. Roast cocoyam and peel it. Pound/mash the cocoyam, pour in the earthenware bowl, add ingredients including pepper, onion and salt.

Add a bit of amane or salted fish (momone -optional) and then add fried palm oil.

Edibi

Another Ashanti meal.

Get corn flour, grind onions and pepper. Add salted fish or dried herrings and grind together.

Put a pot with palm oil on fire, add some water and add the corn mixture. Pour out into dried corn husk (like kenkey) and tie both ends of the leaf. Put the tied leaf in a pot of boiling water and wait for it to cook.

Apapransa

Not very common but very nutritious.

You will need roasted cornmeal, onions, tomatoes, pepper, salted fish (momone), powdered shrimps, deboned herrings, smoked salmon, smoked salmon, palm oil, precooked crabs and seasoning including salt.

Add some palm oil to the pot, add the salted fish, add sliced onions, add blended spices (onion, pepper, garlic), dice or slice in tomatoes and stir. Add deboned herrings, stir and let it cook. Add the smoked mackerel when the tomato is almost done. Add shrimp powder, crabs (optional), seasoning and salt to taste.

When the sauce is ready, take out crabs and scoop some of the stew aside. Add some water to the stew in the pot, taste for salt, cover, and boil. Set some of the boiled based on the side. Add your roasted corn flour and add it to the base while stirring continuously. Add water till you get your desired consistency.

Add crab and the rest of the stew and stir.



Mpotompoto (yam/cocoyam porridge)

You will need, diced cocoyam/yam, dried fish, tomatoes, onions, garlic, pepper, ginger, palm oil, salt, onga cube. Preparation

Peel the cocoyam and cut into small pieces and wash thoroughly, Put the cocoyam in another saucepan, add water, add the dried fish, onga cube and salt to taste and cover to boil, Blend the tomatoes , pepper, garlic, onion, ginger and add to the cocoyam mixture.

Taste for salt when the soup is ready. Scoop some of the soup into a separate bowl.` Use a potato masher or wooden ladle to mash the cocoyam in the pan. Heat palm oil or cooking oil add a little chopped onion for flavour and pour them into the mashed cocoyam.

Stir and allow to simmer for a couple of minutes. Serve the mashed cocoyam with the soup.



Ofam

A lot of people still cook this meal today but here's how our grandparents used to prepare it.

You will need:

Ripe plantain, corn dough, or flour, palm oil

Get corn dough, dry the corn dough out. Pound the ripe plantain, and add the mixture of the corn while doing it, all in a mortar, with a pestle (like fufu). The corn should not be more than the plantain.

Put waakye leaves in a saucepan, pour the mixture into the leaves in the pan, put in an oven or in a clay stove, with moderate fire. Serve and enjoy



Akaw

Ingredients: cocoyam, garden eggs, onion, pepper, and palm oil

Boil cocoyam, add salt to the water.

For the abom, grind pepper, onion, pepper and garden eggs in a bowl, add fried palm oil and serve.



Aboboi

Ripe plantain, Palm oil, flour, Onion, Pepper, Ginger, 2 Cups of cow peas. Wash the chick peas and cook in a pan with water

Wash the plantains clean.

Peel and put them in your mixing bowl. Put the spices in a blender and grind them till a smooth texture is obtained. Blend the peeled plantains with the spices till a smooth paste is obtained.

Add flour to the plantain mixture and mix together Add salt to taste. Preheat oven.

Put your frying pan on the stove and preheat with some palm oil for shallow frying.

Place scoops of the remaining plantain mixture into the pan and fry on low heat. Make sure to rotate/flip the cakes until they are well done. Add salt to the cooked cow peas and pour a serving bowl.

Serve with the Tatale pancake pieces. Be sure to add a teaspoon or two of sugar to the Aboboi for extra delight!



Akankyie

Get ripe plantain, with pepper and onion.

Grind the raw ripe plantain in an earthenware bowl and add oil, put it into leaves and bake. Bake in an oven or clay stove

Ahurugya

You'll need: Plantain, salt

Put unpeeled plantain over the fire, roast it, let it cook with the peels. Have salty water on the side, peel the roasted plantain and dip it in the salt solution for taste.

Take out and serve. It can be enjoyed with thickened soup that is called locally Nkwankyee or akeka.