Ghana Kenkey and fish (fermented cornmeal)

My culinary journey heads to Ghana today. You know how you hear of a meal from a culture that is not yours and you will quickly dismiss it? This has been my reaction to Ghana Kenkey until I tasted it this last weekend. Before then I had wondered what the big deal was about a simple fermented cornmeal wrapped in corn leaves. A trial over this weekend certainly convinced me otherwise.

Then again if you are not a lover of fermented cereal like Ogi, Koko or Eko, you may not be quickly sold. Just trust me. The combination of the slightly sour Kenkey and the the slight sweetness of the sauce made from Tatashe, Scotch bonnet pepper and onion with the well-seasoned fried fish will change your thoughts about this meal. Yeah! *dancing* I just managed to sell Ghana Kenkey.

To start off I did not attempt to make the Ghana Kenkey at home. I simply bought freshly made ones from Obalende in Lagos. I understand that you can find it sold around the Falomo Police Barracks area. Just like I did, for a start you can get yours this way. On my next trip to Accra I will get to the bottom of how this lovely fermented cereal is made.

The interesting thing about Kenkey is that because it is fermented, the corn loses some of the starch content and so it’s more interesting for me from a healthy meal point of view. Oh just in case you think portion control does not apply in this case, it surely does hahaha!

Basically, I will share how I made my version of the sauce for Kenkey. Typically Kenkey is eaten with fried fish and pepper sauce or shitto which is a dried fried sauce made from dried fish, spices and dry pepper. Enjoy my sauce for now whilst I bring you step by step method for making Kenkey at home at a later date.

 

Recipe for Ghana Kenkey Fried Fish Sauce

Ingredients

1 whole medium size Fresh fish

2 teaspoons Ginger powder

1 teaspoon dry red Pepper

6 pieces large Tatashe

Scotch bonnet Pepper to taste

3 pieces Tomato

1 medium size Onion

Patmenja or Curry leaves

Seasoning cube to taste

3 cooking spoons oil for the sauce

Salt to taste

 

How to fry Fish?

1. Cut up fish into desired segments. Rub with salt , ginger powder and a little dried pepper and set aside for about 10 minutes. You may want to make slits on the side of the fish to allow the seasoning to permeate the fish well.
2. Heat up the oil and fry on both sides till brown on the outside. Set fish aside and add to the sauce later.

 

To make Kenkey Sauce?

1. Deseed the Tatashe, wash the tomatoes and pepper, add a little water to the vegetables in a pot and bring to boil whole. Cook the vegetables until very soft and the water dries up. Because I like spicy foods I used quite a bit of pepper in this sauce. I actually combined red scotch bonnet pepper with the yellow Chilli (Cameroon pepper). You can vary the quantity of the vegetables depending on the size of the fish.
2. Heat up the oil, and fry first the onion till translucent and pour in the cooked vegetables and continue frying. Add the seasoning and salt to taste. Allow the sauce to fry till dry. As you can see the vegetables are not blended, this just makes this sauce so different.
3. The fish is added when the sauce is almost ready.
4. Lastly add the curry leaves cover and allow to cook for 1 minute and your Kenkey sauce is ready.
5. This fish sauce goes well with other foods like fried plantain, yam and even bread.