Its Sunday already? Man, how the days fly by and it looks like August is just around the corner. Homowo is here!!!! Yeah, thats the Ga woman in me. :)
Anyway, so i have realised there isnt enough content on Ghanaian dishes in blogosphere and the Internet hemisphere. Not much can be found on how our dishes are prepared, the nutritional content, the best places to find good food etc. Here i am to help create and share content on how our delicious Ghanaian dishes are prepared, all the dishes are prepared by myself in my own kitchen :) with the exception of foods like Kenkey or Kontonte :) . I think its time we show the world what we got in terms of food.
Today, i had two buddies of mine come over for lunch and i cooked up what i had been dreaming about since last week; Egg Koobi Stew with Pona Yam. Koobi is salted dried Tilapia which despite its interesting smell is such a an expensive delicacy used in many other Ghanaian dishes. I say interesting smell because the process of drying and being salted increases the fishy smell.
Ingredients:
5-8 large Tomatoes
3 large Koobi fish
3 large Onions
Kpakposhito (dangerously hot green pepper)
3 Green Bell Peppers
1 Tuber of Pona Yam
3 eggs
Ingredients for Koobi Stew
Just before preparation, make sure to soak the Koobi either over-night or a few hours before cooking to get the salt out it. Trust me, this is a crucial step!
...and heres how its prepared!
1. Cut up the onions and bell peppers into bite-sized chunks.
2. Wash, cut off the fins and remove the gills from the Koobi and set aside. Wash it really well, because the rock salt (which is used to pickle the fish) hides in all kinds of corners inside the fish.
3. Beat the eggs and set aside.
4.You have the option of blending or cutting up the tomatoes. I blended mine as i was looking for the smooth tomatoes paste instead of having the skin floating around in the sauce. Blend the tomatoes with half of the Kpakposhito and onions.
Blended Tomatoes & Onions paste
5. Fry the Koobi with as little oil as possible.
Koobi
6. Place another saucepan on fire, here you can add the oil left over from the fried Koobi instead of using new oil. This adds the flavour from the fish to the stew as well. Fry the other half of the onions and Kpakposhito. Fry the onions until they are almost transparent, this is called caramelising. It gives onions a very sweetish taste and adds great taste to your sauce. You can taste one and see. :)
7. Pour the tomato paste into the saucepan. Here you can add a bit of tin tomatoes. I add it at this stage so it cooks with the tomatoes easily and thoroughly. Rinse the bowl which had the tomato paste with a little water and pour this in (an act i learnt from my Grandma :) God rest her soul). Cover and reduce the heat a bit to cook the sauce well. Add half of Maggi cube.
8. Stir every 5-10 minutes. Sauce should be stewing well in about 15 minutes.
9. Add the fried Koobi, bell peppers and stir. Pour eggs over the sauce. Ok, so with this step, I added the bell peppers at this stage to maintain the crunchiness of the pepper. Do NOT STIR the egg into the sauce!! Let it cook and form into an omelette texture.
10. Peel and cook yam, add a little salt to this. (little!)
11. Taste for saltiness. I dont put in salt at anytime until the sauce is almost done because of the saltiness of Koobi. If you taste and its not too salty, add a little salt to taste.
12. Serve. Eat. Enjoy
Yam with Egg Koobi Stew
This recipe served 4 people (3 ladies and 1 gentleman). How much did i spend in all? About 30 cedis in all. Nutritional content? I would say is pretty well balanced. :)
