Ghanaian black chilli sauce of shallots, dried fish, and prawn cooked in oil until everything darkens
Origin: Accra & the Ghanaian Coast
From the journey of Shallot.
Shito is simply the Ga word for pepper, and the sauce it names is close to black. It is made by frying a very large quantity of shallots and ginger in oil, then adding ground dried fish and dried prawn, chilli, and spices, and cooking the whole thing down for the better part of an hour until every solid has darkened, the water has entirely gone, and the oil rises clear and red above a near-black paste. It keeps for months without refrigeration, and a jar of it accompanies Ghanaians abroad as reliably as a passport. The shallot is the largest fresh component and the region grows its own. The narrow sandspit between the Keta Lagoon and the Atlantic, around Anloga in the Volta Region, is one of the most intensively farmed pieces of land in West Africa, and Anlo-Ewe families have grown shallots there for generations on beds dug close to the water table and fed with lagoon mud and cattle dung, watered by hand two or three times a day. Anloga calls itself the shallot capital of West Africa and the title is not seriously contested. What the shallot contributes is the sweetness that keeps the sauce from being merely hot and salty, and enough body that the paste holds together rather than separating into oil and grit. It has to be cooked long past the point of looking done, because any remaining water will spoil the keeping. It is eaten with kenkey and fried fish, with waakye, with plain rice, with boiled yam, and spread on bread.
Half a kilogram of shallots is correct and they are the largest single ingredient. This is as much a shallot sauce as a pepper one. Ehuru, calabash nutmeg, is sold by West African grocers and has a distinctive resinous note. Ordinary nutmeg is a reasonable substitute at the same quantity. Dried fish and dried prawns are both sold by West African and Asian grocers. Grind them in a spice mill rather than a blender for a finer, more even texture. Properly cooked, with all the water driven off and the solids under oil, it keeps for months at room temperature and a year refrigerated. Serve with kenkey and fried fish, with waakye, with plain rice, with boiled yam or plantain, or spread thinly on buttered bread. A vegetarian version, made without the fish and prawn and with extra mushroom and tomato, is common in Ghanaian cities and is a genuinely different sauce.
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