Red red

Ghana's black-eyed bean stew, named twice over for the palm oil that reddens it and the fried plantain that sits beside it

Origin: Accra & Ghana

From the journey of Oil Palm.

The name is a small joke that has become the dish's identity. Red red is red twice: once for the palm oil that turns the beans a deep rust, and once for the ripe plantain fried alongside until its edges go the same colour. Some Ghanaians will tell you it refers to the beans and the plantain, others to the oil and the tomato, and the disagreement is friendly and unresolved. It is street food, canteen food, and household food in equal measure, and it is one of the very few West African dishes that is naturally vegan in its base form, though the standard version carries smoked fish or gari alongside. The beans are the cowpea, Vigna unguiculata, one of the few staple crops West Africa domesticated for itself rather than receiving from elsewhere. The palm oil here is doing something different from its role in a palm nut soup. This is not the pressed fruit cream but the extracted red oil, used as a cooking fat and a colourant, and it is usually bloomed first: heated gently until it loosens and turns bright, but stopped well before it smokes. Overheated palm oil goes dark and acrid and there is no recovering the pot.

Ingredients

Beans

  • 400 g dried black-eyed beans, soaked overnight
  • 6 tbsp red palm oil
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 4 tomatoes, chopped
  • 2 tbsp tomato purée
  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 thumb of ginger, grated
  • 2 scotch bonnet chillies, chopped
  • 2 tbsp ground crayfish (omit for a vegan version)
  • 1 stock cube
  • 1.5 tsp salt, or to taste

Plantain

  • 3 very ripe plantains, in thick diagonal slices
  • 400 ml neutral oil, for frying

Method

  1. Drain the soaked beans, cover generously with fresh water, and boil until tender but still holding shape, forty-five minutes to an hour. Do not salt them until soft. Drain, keeping 400ml of the cooking water.
  2. Warm the palm oil in a heavy pan over a gentle heat until it liquefies fully and brightens in colour. Do not let it smoke: burnt palm oil is bitter and will carry through the whole dish.
  3. Add the onions and cook until soft and golden, about ten minutes.
  4. Add the garlic, ginger, and chillies, cook for a minute, then stir in the tomato purée and cook it out for three minutes until darkened.
  5. Add the chopped tomatoes and cook down hard for twelve to fifteen minutes, until the mixture thickens and the oil separates and pools red at the edges.
  6. Fold in the cooked beans, the ground crayfish, the stock cube, and the reserved bean water. Simmer for twenty minutes, stirring now and then, until thick and glossy. Taste for salt.
  7. Meanwhile heat the frying oil to 180°C and fry the plantain slices in batches until deep gold with caramelised edges, three to four minutes a side. Drain on paper and salt lightly.
  8. Serve the beans in a bowl with the fried plantain beside rather than stirred in, and gari or rice if you want it.

Notes

Palm oil must be warmed rather than heated hard; the moment it smokes the dish is compromised. Very ripe plantain, skins yellow going black, is essential for the caramelisation the name depends on. For a fully vegan version drop the crayfish and stock cube and lift the seasoning with extra chilli, salt, and a squeeze of lime at the end. The beans should be creamy but distinct rather than collapsed.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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