Ghanaian Cuisine: Red Red

One of the highlights of my trip to Ghana was discovering the local cuisine. While the variety of dishes may seem limited at first, it more than makes up for it with bold flavors and staple ingredients like cassava, yam, and plantains. One of the best-known dishes in West African cooking is fufu—a starchy dough made from cassava or yams, traditionally eaten by hand.

Today, though, I’d like to share my personal favorite: Red Red. This comforting dish is a rich bean stew made with black-eyed beans and red palm oil, typically served with fried plantains.

Red-Red is a Ghanaian bean stew that is usually served with fried plantains.

We recently recreated the recipe at one of our gatherings in Würzburg. Some of the more unusual ingredients, like red palm oil or plantains, can be found in well-stocked African grocery stores or in many Asian supermarkets.

Ingredients:

• 180–200 g black-eyed beans

• 60 ml red palm oil

• 1 large onion

• 1 tbsp tomato paste

• 3–4 ripe tomatoes (or 1 can of chopped tomatoes)

• 1 leek

• Fresh ginger

• 2 cloves of garlic

• 1 chili pepper (Scotch bonnet or habanero)

• 500 ml vegetable broth

• 4 plantains

• Gari (roasted cassava flour)

Preparation:

Soak the dried beans overnight in cold water, or for about an hour in hot water if you’re short on time. Then cook them for 30–45 minutes, until tender.

Roughly chop the onion, finely mince the garlic, slice the leek into rings, and dice the tomatoes.

Heat the red palm oil in a large pot and sauté the onions until they start to caramelize. Stir in the tomato paste and let it cook briefly.

Add the garlic and cook for about 30 seconds, then stir in the ginger, leek, and tomatoes. Let everything simmer for 5–10 minutes, until the mixture has thickened slightly.

Add the whole chili (this way you can control the heat more easily) and remove it again before serving.

Next, add the cooked beans and vegetable broth. Let everything simmer gently over low heat for about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, prepare the plantains.

Peel the plantains, cut them into diagonal slices, season with salt and pepper, and either fry them in a pan or roast them in the oven.

Serve the finished Red Red with a sprinkle of gari.

We hope you enjoy it as much as we do! One last tip: homemade flatbread with garlic butter isn’t exactly traditional, but it goes wonderfully well with this dish.