Opinion – Recipes from Marcão: Vermilion stew looks like Bahia, but was born in Ghana

West African country Ghana is playing its fourth World Cup this year – in 2010, its team managed to reach the quarter-finals with Uruguay, in a highly contested game that our neighbors only won in the penalty shootout.

As far as food culture is concerned, Ghana has several elements in common with Bahia. This is far from a coincidence: Bahian drug traffickers brought enslaved people from this region of the Gulf of Guinea (known at the time as Costa da Mina).

Among the elements of Ghanaian cuisine that are familiar to us are palm oil and black-eyed peas — both present in the recipe for acarajé, street food from Bahia that is popular throughout Brazil.

They are also the protagonists of red red, a typical dish from Ghana whose recipe I will present below.

It doesn’t take a lot of English to understand that red red means “red red”. The food got its name because it is made with two very red ingredients: besides palm oil, tomato.

Some red red recipes recommend the addition of dried smoked shrimp, another ingredient in Bahia’s cuisine. By the way, search for “bean-fradinho à baiana” on Google and you will find a very similar preparation.

I opted for a vegan version. The smoke flavor comes from the smoked paprika. Red red is a dish loaded with spices, and you can make it spicy if you like—I just used a few harmless, scented peppers.

Fried plantains are the classic side dish to red red. You can also make white rice or eat it with a typical West African product called gari.

I went to research what is gari, but Wikipedia only has an entry in English. I will translate: “In West Africa, gari is the granulated flour obtained by processing the starchy tuberous roots of freshly harvested cassava.”

Well… it seems that this ingredient is also known to Brazilians.

red red

Difficulty: easy

Yield: 4 servings

INGREDIENTS

500 g of black-eyed peas

2 tablespoons of palm oil

1 chopped onion

2 tablespoons chopped leek

2 minced garlic cloves

1 teaspoon of grated ginger

2 hot peppers or hot peppers (optional)

4 ripe tomatoes, chopped

2 tablespoons of tomato paste

2 tablespoons smoked paprika

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon of curry

salt to taste

PREPARATION

1. Let the beans soak in the fridge for 8 hours. Discard the soaking water and cook the beans in new water until al dente. Reserve.
2. Heat the palm oil over medium heat. Saute onion, garlic, leeks, ginger and peppers.
3. Add the tomato and tomato paste. Cook until dissolved.
4. Add the cooked beans with part of their water. Add the remaining seasonings. Cook until you get a thick, reddish broth. Adjust the salt.
5. Serve with fried plantain, rice and manioc flour.