Читать книгу The Ghana Cookbook - Fran Osseo-Asare - Страница 12

Seasoning Techniques

Meats, poultry, and fish are generally seasoned before cooking, whether they are to be grilled, baked, or used in soups or stews. The seasoning may be stuffed into slits, rubbed over the item, or the item may be steamed in a little water before continuing on to make a soup or stew or sauce. Steaming is done partly to seal the juices into the meat and flavor it, and partly because meat from free-range cattle and poultry tends to be tough and needs to be cooked for a longer time.

The seasonings most often used in Ghana include salt, garlic, ginger, onion, and chili pepper. More recently seasoning cubes or seasoned salt have displaced some fabulous indigenous spices and traditional seasonings. Grinding on a grinding stone is a common traditional technique for preparing the ginger and garlic, but North Americans can grate the ginger and crush the garlic. Onions are often simply sliced, and seasoning cubes are crushed between the fingers. Seasoning cubes are more common in West Africa than granules, for they are more portable and can be sold individually. Hot dried chili powder is sprinkled over the item being seasoned and/or fresh chili peppers may be simply sliced and sprinkled over it or added whole and removed during cooking once the desired heat is reached. Poultry or fish may be cleansed with lemon or lime juice and a little water before being seasoned. Many, but not all, Ghanaians like spicy foods. It is fine to tone down the heat if a milder experience is preferred.

Basic Seasoning Mixture for meat and poultry

This recipe is a basic seasoning that can be used on almost anything. The amounts of ingredients are flexible and forgiving, and can be adjusted according to your preferences. This preparation works for both stews and soups, depending on the recipe. It makes enough for 2 pounds of meat or poultry.

Ingredients

2 heaping teaspoons crushed garlic

½ to 1 cup chopped onion

1 or 2 small chicken, beef, or shrimp-flavored seasoning cubes, crumbled (optional)

½ teaspoon salt or seasoned salt (or to taste)

½ teaspoon dried ground red pepper (or to taste)

A little fresh red chili pepper (your choice; see heat chart, page 37), sliced (including seeds, unless a less spicy flavor is preferred); or ¼ teaspoon or more dried ground red pepper

Directions

In a bowl, sprinkle all the ingredients over the meat or chicken, and toss well. Put the meat or chicken into a pot with ½ cup of water or stock, cover tightly, and steam on medium heat for 15 minutes.

Variations:

In place of seasoning cubes, increase the salt/seasoned salt and substitute a little dried ground shrimp and spices like thyme or basil or black or white pepper, or use stock in place of the water.

Basic Seasoning Mixture for fish

To make above seasoning mixture for use with grilled fish, grate rather than chop the onion and mix the prepared ingredients together in a bowl with a tablespoon of vegetable oil. Cut slits into the sides of a whole, cleaned fish, and stuff the seasoning into the slits and rub on the outside of the fish. (For example, see the recipe for Grilled Tilapia on page 134.)

Tankora Powder

Tankora powder is a West African rub for meats, poultry, etc. that is most famously used for West African kebabs. Like curry powders, it’s a blend of several dried, powdered ingredients. There are many versions, but most commonly they contain dried ground red pepper, ginger, some kind of black or white pepper, salt, peanut powder, and various other spices. Some versions call for mace, cloves, Maggi cubes, or garlic, and in Ghana people commonly mix in some toasted corn flour.

I recommend going “all out” and making the rub from scratch. As with a curry powder, freshly made is best. You can mix and match the ingredients you happen to like in the quantities you prefer. I usually make this just before I need it, but it could also be stored in the freezer. In this book Tankora Powder is used in making Ghana-Style Beef/Liver/Chicken Kebabs (pages 74-75).

Ingredients

½ cup peanut flour

¼ cup toasted corn flour (page 29)

½ teaspoon dried ground red pepper (or to taste)

1 teaspoon ground dried ginger (or to taste)

½ to 1 teaspoon salt or seasoned salt (or to taste)

Optional: other ingredients as desired, e.g., ½ teaspoon dried powdered green bell pepper; ¼ teaspoon mace or nutmeg; ½ teaspoon ground black, white, or Ashanti pepper; shrimp-flavored or other seasoning cube, crumbled

Directions

Mix all the ingredients together.

One of the best kebabs (called chichinga or tsitsinga) I had in Ghana was made from tender beef (often chichinga is made from very tough meats and quite chewy), and the vendor (from the North) told me he made his own tankora powder that included: white pepper, dried sweet green pepper powder (the only time I’ve ever heard of that in tankora powder), dried powdered ginger, ground nutmeg, Maggi and Royco shrimp seasoning cubes, salt, peanut powder, and dried red pepper.