Fried Ackee Arils

Ripe ackee arils from northern Benin, parboiled in salted water and fried golden in red palm oil or groundnut oil

Origin: Northern Benin

From the journey of Ackee.

This is a way of eating the ackee rather than a dish with a name. In its West African homeland the fruit has never gathered a cuisine around it as it did in Jamaica, and where it is eaten it is eaten simply. The oldest account is Jamaican, written about Africa: when the tree's seeds reached Jamaica in 1778, the Hortus Eastensis recorded that the inhabitants of Guinea served the aril at table by itself or boiled in a broth. Today the ackee matters most in the north of Benin. A survey of five of the country's peoples, published by Marius Ekué and his colleagues in 2010, found that the arils are eaten fresh, fried in groundnut or palm oil, parboiled with salt and sometimes with spices, or dried in the sun to keep and to sell, and that the dried arils are cooked in the same ways as the fresh. The Batombu of the Borgou used them in every one of these forms, and they fried them far more often than any of the other peoples surveyed. What follows keeps to what the survey describes: the aril parboiled in salted water and then fried. The result is crisp at the edges, creamy within, and rich, with the nutty sweetness that led the Natemba to call the tree foulama, 'groundnut of trees'. The ackee must be ripe. In West Africa as in Jamaica, unripe arils are poisonous, and PROTA records that eating them has probably caused many cases of encephalopathy in children in Burkina Faso and neighbouring countries. Use only arils from pods that have opened fully on the tree, and remove every seed and every trace of the pink membrane.

Ingredients

Ackee

40 fresh ackee arils from pods that have opened fully on the tree (about 15 pods), or 150 g sun-dried ackee arils
1 l water
2 tsp salt

To fry

250 ml red palm oil or groundnut oil, for shallow frying
0.5 tsp fine salt, to finish
0.5 tsp ground dried chilli (optional)

Method

If you are using fresh ackee, take the arils out of the opened pods, discard the black seeds, and pull away every trace of the pink membrane from the hollow of each aril. Rinse them. If you are using dried arils, soak them in warm water for an hour, then drain.
Bring the water to the boil with the 2 teaspoons of salt, add the arils, and simmer for 5 minutes. Drain them and throw the water away.
Spread the arils on a clean cloth and pat them dry, then leave them for 10 minutes so that the surface dries further.
Heat the oil in a deep frying pan over a medium heat until a piece of aril sizzles steadily as soon as it goes in. Fry the arils in two batches for 4 to 6 minutes, turning them once, until golden at the edges.
Lift the arils out on to kitchen paper, sprinkle with the fine salt and the ground chilli, if using, and eat warm.

Notes

Eat them as a snack, or alongside a sauce and a pâte of maize or sorghum. Sun-dried ackee arils are the commonest form in the markets of northern Benin; outside West Africa, fresh ackee is hard to find, and tinned Jamaican ackee, which is already boiled and very soft, does not fry well. The survey records the method, not a recipe, and the quantities here are for a household of four.

The Gastrographer

Name: Fried Ackee Arils
Prep time: 20 min
Cook time: 15 min
Total time: 35 min
Yield: 4
Cuisine: Northern Benin
Ingredients: 40 fresh ackee arils from pods that have opened fully on the tree (about 15 pods), or 150 g sun-dried ackee arils; 1 l water; 2 tsp salt; 250 ml red palm oil or groundnut oil, for shallow frying; 0.5 tsp fine salt, to finish; 0.5 tsp ground dried chilli (optional)

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control