Juice Cubes

If you love fruit punches, cocktails and mixed drinks here's a little tip to avoid watering down your drinks.


JUICE CUBES!!!

Ingredients

1. Juice flavor. You can have juice that complements the juice in your punch e.g. grape juice for a mixed fruit juice punch. Or you can have the same juice/mixer that's included in your drink.


2. Ice cube tray (clean)

Directions

1. Pour juice into ice cube tray making sure it doesn't go over the line.

2. Freeze

TADA!!

This also sometimes works with alcohol if you mix a little water in before you freeze it. (Though why would you want to do that?)

Healthy "Fried Plantain"

PLANTAIN -- The low fat way

So I'm on a new "eat healthy" wave and have been trying to find ways of cooking Ghanaian food without a lot of fat/oil.

I know I know. It ruins the whole point of the food right. The whole point of the Ghanaian food is that layer of oil that sits on everything. But times are changing and our food is going to have to change with the times.

So here's my method of oven baked plantain. It's a little dryer than deep fried plantain but tastes just as good.

1. 2-3 pieces of plantain
2. Olive oil spray
3. Foil, Oven and baking tray
3. Salt and pepper to taste

1. Cut your plantain to your specifications. I like to make my slices flat so that both sides get nicely browned (Trying to simulate the deep fried look).

2. Wash the plantain, add salt and pepper and mix it in with your hand.

3. Line the baking tray with foil and spray lightly with the olive oil.

4. Lie the plantain in flat and lightly spray with olive oil again.

5. Set Oven to 425F and bake for 15 minutes**.

6. Check at minute 10 and turn over if nicely browned. Extend the bake time for another 5 minutes if it's not.

** Temperature and cook time depends on the health of your oven. Mine is old and doesn't heat up below 325F but burns at 450F

Happy Eating!!!

So I've decided to come back to blogging and to my surprise realized I've got a couple of views!!

So welcome to the people that have been interested in cooking Ghanaian food in quick easy steps.

I'll try to post a recipe once a month (if possible). There's quite a few things I don't cook because 1. I only know how to make them in large quantities and have to figure out how to make them smaller and 2. It's really hard to find the right ingredients.

Quick Cook: Plantain

Mmmm. Plantain = Kelewele.

Quick Cook : Food Source

If you live in Manhattan and need to find food from home....

West African Grocery, 535 Ninth Avenue between 39th and 40th Streets; 212-695-6215.

The best part about this market is that the employees are from all over africa, but the owners are Korean!!

And for all you brooklynites!

Odyssey African Market, 1124 Fulton Street between Franklin Avenue and Claver Place; 718-789-7077.

2. Quick Cook- Stew

After you've chosen your meat;

You will need 1. One big white onion or two small white onions
2. One medium sized tin of pureed tomatoes*
3. One tin/tube of tomato paste
4. Curry powder
5. Three hot/spicy chillies
6. Pinch of salt
7. One cube beef stock
8. Adobo or some other flavoured cooking salt
9. Spice of your choice (I usually use cayenne pepper but my mom swears by one or two bay leaf)
10. Cooking oil


Cut the steak into bite size pieces. Use a sharp knife to piece a hole in both sides of each piece. Rub a mixture of two teaspoons of curry powder, the adobo and beef stock into the beef. (If you have already prepared your beef ignore this step)

Place the beef into a small pan, add a 1/2 cup of water and put on the fire. You want the beef to absorb all those wonderful flavours.

While the beef is cooking, chop up the onion and the chili peppers. You can either leave the chopped onions in little pieces or blend it together with the chili peppers. I like to see the pieces of onion in my finished stew so I don't blend it. If you don't blend your onions, add the cut chili peppers to the can of pureed tomato and blend together.

Check that the beef is cooked by cutting a small portion and tasting. There should be no trace of blood in the juices and the beef should be tender. Separate the beef from the stock liquid.

Pour some cooking oil into a pot and place it on the fire. The oil should be just enough to spread evenly over the surface of the pan. Test that the oil has heated sufficiently by dropping a piece of onion into it. If the onion starts frying, you know its hot. When the oil is hot, add your onions and let it cook for about 5 minutes or until the onions brown. Add three teaspoons of tinned tomatoes and mix well. Let it cook for another 5 minutes.

Add the beef to the pot with two tablespoons of the beef stock. Mix it in and let it sit for a few minutes. This gives the beef time to soak up the onion and tomato flavours. After a few minutes, add all the beef stock and a cup of water. Add two shakes of the spice of your choice, one teaspoon of curry powder and a pinch of salt to taste. Mix them in, cover the pot with its lid and let the stew cook. Stir occasionally to prevent the bottom from burning. After 30 minutes the stew should have lost much of its watery consistence.

At this time it is up to you to decide how thick you want it to be. I usually use how fast the stew falls from a spoon to check. If it falls too fast, it's not cooked enough. If it clumps to the spoon so much that you have to shake it loose...well it's become more of a sauce than a stew but its still edible.


* I prefer canned pureed tomatoes because it is much easier to store than real tomatoes and it reduces cooking time. If you'd prefer using real tomatoes this is how you prepare them.
Cut four tomatoes into quarters and then into cubes.
Put them in the blender with half a teaspoon of salt and the cut chili peppers.
Blend until smooth.
Cook the rest of the stew as above but leave out the pinch of salt and reduce the amount of salt you use to season the beef.

Choosing and Preparing Meat for Stew

The first time I tried making stew was....a disaster. I had called my mom the day before and written down everything she said but you know how moms give out recipes. "Take a little pepper...a tiny pinch of salt....some tomatoes". I followed her instructions to the letter. I took a little pepper sauce (couldn't find peppers), two tomatoes (small tiny ones), over cooked my meat and burnt the stew! I'm telling you this because making stew (unfortunately) can take a little practice. After two or three attempts you'll discover which spices you like and which consistency works best for you. The key to a good stew is constant experimentation and a happy attitude. So put on some high-life, hip-life, hip-hop or country (if you like that kind of thing) and lets get cooking.

The first thing is to choose your meat. It's good to start with a beef stew because beef is easier to cook. If you're like me, the different cuts of beef weren't an integral part of your secondary school education. What I found really easy was to go to the beef section of my local supermarket and select the cubed beef (if they say it's cut for easy cooking in a stew all the better). If that isn't available, pick up a cut steak. Most steak is sirloin which means there's little fat in it and it'll cook easily.

One trick for cutting down on cooking time is to marinate your beef the very day you get it. Cut the steak into pieces, pierce a little hole in each piece, rub it in whatever spice/marinate mix you desire, put it in a zip lock bag and stick it in the fridge.

Adobo is pretty much everywhere these days and it's a good choice for making a marinade.
A quick marinde receipe is : a tea spoon of Adobo, a teaspoon of curry powder, a dash of salt and as much pepper as your mouth can handle.