Ghanaian Red Beans Stew (Atidua)
Savoury and hearty beans stew made with red cowpeas
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