Stewed Beans (Ewa Riro)
Stewed beans is another popular Nigerian beans recipe. Ghanaian called it red red and the Yoruba's calls it Ewa riro. Stewed beans can be made with black eyed peas or honey beans. I have used black eyed peas for this recipe.
Equipment
- Pressure Cooker
Ingredients
- 450 g Brown Beans or black-eyed peas
- 1 cup Nigerian Pepper mix substitute with cayenne pepper
- Handful dried catfish washed (optional)
- Handful bonga fish washed and deboned (optional)
- 1 large onion chopped
- 1-1.5 cups palm oil adjust to preference
- 1 tsp Bouillon powder or 2 Maggi cubes. optional
- Salt use according to preference but you can start with 1tsp
- 2 tbsp ground crayfish
Instructions
- Place a pot on medium heat, add rinsed beans, enough water to cook and add half of the chopped onions, and bring to boil until tender. This might take a while, but quicker if you have a pressure-cooking pot. Add water in between to avoid the beans drying out/ burning.
- Once the beans are tender, reduce the heat or set aside. Place a clean/dry pan on medium high heat, pour in palm oil and leave to heat up for about 2-3 minutes, add the remaining chopped onions and continue frying till onion is transparent this should be for another 3 minutes. Be careful not to burn the onions and avoid getting burned by the hot oil too (keep your kitchen well ventilated when doing this process. Remember you are not bleaching the oil, you are only frying to melt the palm oil to rid curdling in the mouth when eating and to also allow the onion flavour to be infused in the oil)
- Add pepper mix, bouillon/Maggi, salt, dried fish and crayfish to the beans (check if you need to add water and adjust accordingly) stir till well combined.
- Add the fried sauce to the cooked beans and stir again till all is combined. (check for salt and seasoning and adjust to preference)
- Leave the beans to simmer for 3 to 5 minutes on low heat. Leave to cool and serve immediately
Notes
Tips...
• Substitute dried catfish/bonga with canned mackerel
• Add your salt when beans are soft, if you add it at the beginning of the cooking process, the beans won’t cook in time. This is an old wives tale but I think its true.
• Substitute dried catfish/bonga with canned mackerel
• Add your salt when beans are soft, if you add it at the beginning of the cooking process, the beans won’t cook in time. This is an old wives tale but I think its true.