![\"Kenkey,](\"https:\/\/fnerk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/20210912_160120.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIf “corn dough in a corn husk” sounds like a tamale to you, you’re right – the textures are VERY similar. But the other key word here is “fermented.” As in sour.\u00a0 That’s right – this is a sourdough tamale.\u00a0 If that sounds awesome to you, then you’re right! (We’ll talk about the other ingredients in this picture in good time.)<\/p>\n
Fully steamed, the kenkey looks like this: When I told the lady at the African grocer that we were planning to make Jollof Rice for our main dish, she harrumphed a bit at that.\u00a0 “We’re Nigerian – our version is better than the Ghanaian version.” After I got home, we did a little reading, and realized that there’s a HUGE rivalry over this dish between the two countries, which is hilarious, because it’s originally from Senegal.<\/p>\n But today’s project is Ghana, so here we go.\u00a0 Ghanaian Jollof Rice is a tomato rice dish, which can be made with or without meat.\u00a0 We decided to go with a chicken version, so we started by browning some chicken in oil. (With some onions, of course, because EVERY recipe starts with cooking onions.)\u00a0 We probably should have used red palm oil, but the cookbook called for peanut, so we went with that.<\/p>\n After that, you brown off some aromatics and thyme in the same pan.<\/p>\n To finish the preparations, you pour in some tomato paste, tomatoes, and stock and cook that down a little.\u00a0 Finally all of this gets tossed into a heavy pot with long grain rice.\u00a0 Apparently, one difference between Ghanaian and Nigerian versions of this dish is that Nigerians will parboil the rice first.\u00a0 (Or use a precooked rice like Uncle Ben’s.)<\/p>\n And that’s it – the pot goes into the oven to simmer for a while until the rice is cooked and the chicken is tender.\u00a0 At the end, you stir in some veg.\u00a0 (I am embarrassed to report that we used frozen mixed veg, but it worked OK.) And what comes out is not at all unlike jambalaya, which is of course, not surprising, given the origins of jambalaya.<\/p>\n Finally, this is served with the second ingredient from the photo above – shito sauce.\u00a0 Shito is a condiment made with chili peppers and shrimp.\u00a0 It’s hot and fishy and salty and a giant umami bomb.\u00a0 The recipe for making it says that your house will smell like fish for DAYS afterward, so we decided to just get it out of a can.\u00a0 No regrets at ALL – it was excellent.<\/p>\n Deserts other than fresh fruit are apparently not a huge thing in Ghana, but one recipe caught our eye, and since the grocery store had it, we decided to give it a go – tiger nut pudding.<\/p>\n Tiger nuts are the tuber of the Yellow Nutsedge plant, which is cultivated specifically for this purpose in many parts of the world, and cursed as an invasive weed in many OTHER parts of the world.\u00a0 Wikipedia specifically mentions its affinity for golf courses, oddly enough.\u00a0 If you’ve had horchata anywhere BUT Latin America, it was probably made from tiger nuts.<\/p>\n To make tiger nut pudding (or horchata, it’s basically the same process), first you grind them to a fine paste with some water in a food processor.\u00a0 These suckers are HARD, so it does take a while.<\/p>\n Once they’re ground, you add a bit more liquid, then put the whole mess into some cheesecloth and strain the liquid back out.<\/p>\n You soak the nuts with a little more liquid and strain that too. And then you take the nuts and… throw them away.\u00a0 It’s the liquid we’re after.<\/p>\n At this point, you’ve got your drink – you could stop there, but we’re trying to make pudding.\u00a0 So in goes the sugar, and onto the heat goes the pot.<\/p>\n After a few minutes of stirring, the mixture thickens.\u00a0 This always amazes me when it happens.\u00a0 Chemistry is magic.\u00a0 The thickened mixture goes into some ramekins, and after we finished our rice, we had tasty pudding. (And an hour left to go on the kenkey.)<\/p>\n In terms of flavor, it was subtle – reminiscent of cinnamon or clove, but not really either.\u00a0 It was definitely its own thing, and a tasty thing it was.<\/p>\n And that was our Ghanaian meal!\u00a0 We are DEFINITELY going to be going back to that grocery store in the future – after all, Guinea and Guinea-Bissau are both on the horizon.\u00a0 But even if they weren’t – I’d want to toss some kenkey in the freezer and get a few more cans of shito.\u00a0 Ghana’s definitely got it going on in the food department.<\/p>\n Next up, a country that we’ve not only visited, but we’ve even documented right here on this blog – Greece!<\/p>\n Recipes were from The Ghana Cookbook, by Fran Osseo-Asare & Barbara Ba\u00ebta.\u00a0 Here’s a link to some similar recipes from the internets:<\/p>\n Ghanaian Jollof Rice<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “How do you know our food?” The nice lady at the African grocery store was VERY confused.\u00a0 Why was this clearly non-African person asking for kenkey and shito? When I explained about our little “cook the world” project, she seemed … Continue reading
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\nSadly, we didn’t realize that “fully steamed” takes about two hours, so we didn’t get to try these until an hour or so AFTER we’d eaten the rest of the meal.\u00a0 But that’s fine – they were great as leftovers, too.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n
\nTiger Nut Pudding<\/a>
\nGa Kenkey<\/a> (although our recipe was “buy from store, then steam.”)
\nShito Sauce<\/a> (us: “open can, eat”)<\/p>\n