Waakye, a Ghanaian dish

Hello guys
I haven’t been on here in a while because of project as a final year student. It’s been giving me stress, I don’t even have time for myself or even come here. But today, I managed to come here to share my waakye recipe with you guys

“Waakye” which means rice and beans is a Ghanaian dish originally from northern Ghana 🇬🇭. Waakye short form of “shinkafa da wake” in Hausa is prepared with rice and beans (black eyed beans or any beans of your choice). It can be eaten in morning, afternoon and sometimes as supper depending on the individual.

It is one of the popular food in Ghana among other dishes like gob3 (beans and plantain). These dishes are popular among the youth because it keep them full for a long time. I’m yet to see someone who doesn’t like waakye. It is sold at the road side mostly and trust me you won’t feel the true waakye taste in restaurants. I mean the road side vendors do it better than the restaurants.
It goes with so many accompaniments, like spaghetti “talia”, garri, vegetable salad of cabbage, meat or fish, wele stew or shito, boiled eggs. Let me say this waakye dish is a fully loaded plate of goodies 😋

I’ve been craving waakye for some time now but the waakye they sell around my school isn’t waakyeing enough for me, I mean it isn’t giving the waakye vibes I want. So I decided to prepare it myself and it has surprisingly became one of my favorite foods. I used to like it though but not as just a favorite 🤩
To prepare waakye you will need:
Rice
Black eyed beans or any beans of your choice
Red sorghum leaf sheath or waakye leaves ( this gives it the reddish color)
Limestone (tenderize the beans)
Salt to taste

Ingredients I used
2 cups of rice
1 cup of black eyed beans
Waakye leaves
Limestone
Salt

I started by washing the beans and rice separately, personally I double wash to get all the grain weevils all out. I boiled the beans by adding the limestone to make it tender. I then added the rice and mixed it together and then added the waakye leaves and added more water. I allowed it to cook until it was soft. Some people boil the beans with the waakye leaves first to make the beans more reddish than the rice but I prefer both the rice and beans to be of the same color if that makes sense.

For the accompaniments, I used green hot sauce “kpapkpo shito” also native to Ghana, fried tender and crispy beef, spaghetti, boiled chicken egg vegetable salad of cabbage and garri. You might think what kind of dish goes with so many accompaniments, well that’s waakye for you
Ingredients for kpakpo shito and beef
5 cloves of garlic
2 large onions
12 chilli green pepper
1 large bell pepper
4 Spring onions
30g of ginger
Bay leaf
Beef
Salt and seasoning

I love cooking but one thing that I don’t like is prepping the onions, the ginger and garlic for blending. Don’t get me started with onions making you cry and ginger getting messy because of the soil it comes with as a root vegetable lol

For the beef, I seasoned it with the blended vegetables and steamed it for 20min. I then fried the beef until it was tender and crispy

For the green hot sauce,added chopped onions and allowed to fry for 1min I then added the blended pepper and vegetables and allowed to cook for 15min then added the bay leaf and salt to taste.
I boiled an egg, boiled spaghetti, and prepared my cabbage salad and the garri as my accompaniments
Thank you for reading