Back in 2016 I was doing my hair at a salon when I came across some recipes in a magazine. Which magazine? I can’t remember. But the recipes all looked tasty and low-fuss, so I whipped out my old phone and took pictures of them.
It’s been 4 years and I haven’t made a single one. It’s only a matter of time before I lose them to a hard drive format or something like that. Before that happens, it’s better for me to share them here. That way, others can make them and benefit from them. And who knows, maybe I’ll make them someday. After COVID is over and I can actually go shopping for some of those foods, that is.
In fact, I have a pet theory that one of the keys to saving money in Ghana is acquiring a taste for local fare… and only local fare. Imported foods are expensive! But that’s a discussion for another day. Enjoy the recipes and let me know how it turns out if you make one!
Asian beef tacos with quick pickles (you’ll have to find substitutes for some of the ingredients like the radishes)
Spicy Grilled Salmon (the prices of salmon at the supermarkets will turn your stomach even before you can eat this)
Chicken Caprese (very cheap and doable as long as you leave out the mozzarella)
Shrimp and Zucchini Scampi (some vegetable stands sell zucchini, calling it “squash”. Shrimp is expensive though)
Chicken Cacciatore (Oh, I’ve made this before, minus the orzo. It’s just chicken tomato stew. But tasty!)
Lowcountry Skillet (maybe substitute something for the kielbasa)
Actually it’s a bit hard to define “authentic” when it comes to Chinese food, because they have the same principle as Africans when it comes to cooking: just put everything in and adjust to taste. None of this measuring left and right stuff. The theory is that Taiwanese Three Cup Chicken is called “Three Cup” because it takes a cup each of rice wine, soy sauce, and sesame oil, but in practice how much to add of each is up to you.
The recipe I sort-of followed, sort-of was inspired by is Bob’s Your Uncle’s version:
Bob’s Your Uncle is a Cantonese cooking channel I used to watch to listen to Cantonese and learn simple recipes. Content warning: he’s a bit vulgar in some of his videos. I say “used to watch” because for the past year or two he’s just been posting cruise ship reviews and travel videos, which aren’t really my thing. But his older videos are good for a watch and most of the food looks easy to make.
Enough with the intro, let’s get down to cooking! Except… it’s been over a year since I made this recipe, so I’ve forgotten all the precise proportions I used. Wait, I shouldn’t lie. I didn’t use any proportions. I just used whatever I had in the house:
For example, most recipes call for Thai basil or any other basil, but I don’t have any basil so… I substituted our local herb known as “kowɛ.” It’s a variety of mint but hey, it’s green and it’s leafy just like basil so… yeah. Also I only had a sprig instead of the massive quantities used in the recipe so that’s another change. In the video Bob also finished up by cooking everything in a clay pot, but I don’t have a clay pot so my little skillet had to do. African cooking man, just throw it all in.
Ingredients I used: Chicken thighs, soy sauce, mint (kowɛ), oyster sauce, onions, ginger, garlic, pepper, sesame oil, rice wine, green onions (I happened to have some on hand so why not?), jerk sauce (ditto), a little mirin (ditto). BTW you can find all the stranger ingredients like oyster sauce and sesame oil at a Chinese grocery store like Great Wall Supermarket at Danquah Circle or Jiahua Agricultural somewhere in Osu, I forget where.
Process: I marinated the chicken thighs in a bit of soy sauce and oyster sauce for about an hour before cooking.
Brown the chicken in a little oil (if you marinate it like I did, it will already be brown, but fry it up for extra flavor anyway)
Take out the chicken and set it aside on a plate
Add sesame oil to the pan and fry the sliced ginger and garlic gloves for a minute or two, until fragrant
Add the sliced onions and fry briefly, then add all the chicken back in.
5. Time to season to taste with the extra soy sauce, oyster sauce, jerk sauce, mirin (many recipes call for rock sugar, but mirin is a sweet Japanese condiment so it’ll do), rice wine (optional IMO if you can’t take alcohol) the leftover marinade, anything else you can throw in.
6. Once you’re happy with the taste, toss in the fresh herbs like kowɛ and stir them in, then lower the heat, cover the pan and cook it for 10-15 minutes until the chicken is cooked through. You can add a tiny bit of stock or water if it’s too dry, especially if you skip the rice wine.
7. Taste, adjust final seasoning and serve on a bed of hot, freshly-cooked rice.
It’s really easy to make, TBH with minimal chopping as long as you have the ingredients already on hand.
The only draw back is that the color is a bit dark, so for extra attractiveness serve some greens or salad on the side. I haven’t tried this with substitutes like beef, pork or tofu, but the basic seasoning should work with any other protein. Give it a try and enjoy!
It’s been almost a year since I last posted. I was ill around the end of the year and completely lost my appetite. After that I’ve just been too lazy. Especially lazy to write full posts with recipes and explanations about the various things I’ve been cooking. But that ends today… uh, maybe.
Today’s post is just an old picture I found on my phone SD card. Rice I know and chicken I recognize, but what is the rest of that grey stuff? The reason I posted it is a cautionary tale about buying frozen vegetables in Ghana. Apart from peas and maybe broccoli, I’d say don’t bother. You’ll only get mushy, weird-tasting stuff because the supermarkets don’t take good care of their frozen stuff all the way along the supply chain. It will thaw out and refreeze at some point, as anyone who has ever bought grainy ice cream will testify.
So this awam chicken… stew? Not only looked unappetizing but it also tasted very average, thoroughly unimpressive. Better to buy fresh vegetables if you can afford them, or canned if you want to use preserved. Even Ghana supermarkets can’t mess those up. A word to the wise is enough.
I really need a better camera, but I’m not going to make that an excuse for not posting.
A stir fry is the easiest of the easiest dishes to make when you’re hungry and lazy. Chop up some veggies, chop up some meat, stir them all in a pan until they’re reasonably cooked, enjoy with plain rice or noodles! This chicken stir fry is something I made a lot when I was a student, not so much nowadays. Because it’s such a flexible recipe I’m not going to bother with amounts, just use whatever veggies and meat you have on hand in whatever quantities you want.
Ingredients for chicken and bell pepper stir fry
Chicken breast or thigh, boneless, sliced into thin strips
Bell peppers (a.k.a sweet pepper/green pepper), sliced into thin strips
Onions, thinly sliced
Minced garlic and ginger to taste
Green onions, roughly chopped
Oil
Light soy sauce and a little oyster sauce
Salt and pepper to taste.
1tsp cornstarch mixed with a little water/stock (optional)
Recipe
If you sliced and chopped everything like I told you in the ingredient list, congratulations, you’re half done already! If you have time to spare, you can marinade the chicken strips for about 30 minutes in a little lemon and soy sauce with a pinch of curry for kicks. But it’s not necessary if you spice the dish itself correctly.
Find yourself a big pan or non-stick wok and plop it on the stove on high. When the pan is nice and hot, and a tablespoon or two of oil and stir fy the chicken briefly until lightly seared.
Remove the strips from the pan, add a little more oil if necessary and begin to cook the onions with the garlic and ginger. Keep stirring so they don’t burn. After about a minute, add in the bell peppers, cook for another minute, add the chicken back in.
Add about a tablespoon of light soy sauce (dark is fine too but then you lose the beautiful colour of the dish) and oyster sauce. Taste for salt and add pepper and other spices to taste. Instead of powdered red pepper I like to chop up real chili peppers and stir them in. Depends on how hot you like your food. As soon as the chicken is cooked through and the bell peppers are cooked but still crunchy, you’re ready to eat!
Last but not least, if you looked at the photo of the dish and thought, “That looks a little dry” then mix up a thin mixture of cornstarch and water or stock, just enough to coat the pieces in the pan without drowning them. Stir in and cook for another minute to get a nice, moist stir fry. Personally if I have really good rice and fresh meat and veggies I don’t mind the dry version, but a little moisture does help it go down easier.
Chopping the veggies can take a bit of time, but the cooking process from start to finish shouldn’t take more than 10 minutes. And then you have a fragrant, colourful dish to entertain your belly with. Enjoy!
