Grilled Tilapia

I love Tilapia. For me, there isn't another fish that is as tasty yet so versatile. Fried, boiled, steamed or grilled, it is always very good.

Ingredients:
2 whole Tilapia (scaled and cleaned. I personally remove the gills as well, but most people leave them in)
5 cloves garlic, 1 thumb size piece of ginger and 1/2 a medium size onion
2 cups rice
2 medium size onions + 1/2 for the rice
10 small tomatoes
6 - 8 chilli peppers
1 cup frozen mixed vegetables
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 maggi shrimp cube
Salt

Blend the garlic, ginger and 1/2 onion. Pour over the fish. Crumble the cube over the fish with an additional 1/4 teaspoon salt and refrigerate for at least an hour. Brush the grill rack with an oiled cloth and place the Tilapia in the grill with high heat. Grill till the skin blisters and browns then flip over.

Wash and drain the rice

Pour 1 tablespoon of oil into a pot and fry for a minute or 2 then add the rice. continue to fry, stirring continuously so the rice doesn't stick.

Add 3 1/2 cups of water, 1 teaspoon of salt, cover and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat when it starts to boil.

When the water is all soaked up, add the frozen vegetables and continue to cook till rice and veggies are cooked through.

Slice the onions thinly....

... and blend the tomatoes and pepper.

Heat the rest of the cooking oil in a pan and fry the onions until translucent and the ends browning.

Add the tomatoes about a teaspoon of salt.

Fry until dry then add 1/3 cup of water and reduce heat.

Simmer until almost dry again then turn off heat.

When no liquid comes from the fish, it is done. 

Serve with the vegetable rice and gravy.

Enjoy!

Fish Balls

 Ingredients:
1 Large Smoked Tuna
2 eggs
4 Garlic Cloves
3 hot green peppers
1/2 an Onion
1 Green/Bell pepper
A small piece of ginger (about 1 segment of a finger)
Salt
Black pepper
Cooking Oil (enough for deep frying)

I went hunting through Kaneshie market for a large smoked tuna. They sell them whole, half or even a quarter so that if you don't want to buy much, you don't have to. I chose the largest one I could find. The lady selling told me it would cost GH¢ 16.00. I promptly offered her 12. She aquiesced so readily, I realized I could probably have got it for 10, but oh well. Another important thing to remember when buying smoked Tuna is that it is salted prior to smoking, this gives it a longer shelf life, so-to-speak. The salt can be excessive, so insist on being given the non-salted Tuna. Even this version is not salt free, just less salty. Some offer you a teeny bit to taste before you buy, usually I see that as enough proof and can go ahead and buy it.

Smoked Tuna is not the prettiest to look at but since the skin is usually washed off, it doesn't really have any bearing on the final product. In Ghana, whole smoked fish is smoked with the inards, head gills etc. still inside to maintain the shape of the fish. It is up to you to remove all unwanted parts before you use it.

I start by removing the head, which will usually come away with the gills. Just pull the head upwards sort of by the chin, to expose the neck ( if fish had them). Now seperate the fish along the main bone so that you end up with 2 halves. This should give you access to the stomach content. Since it is all smoked, it should have a firm consistency  and should seperate from the main fish easily. Remove the fins and as many of the bones as you can see.

Rinse the fish thoroughly rubbing off all the skin and residue of insides. Set it aside and carefully start flaking it into a bowl, removing any remaining bones as you go.

Place the half onion, peppers, garlic and ginger in the Asanka and mash. You could go ahead and blend them if you prefer.

Now I chopped the bell pepper, cracked 2 eggs into the spice mixture and sprinkled some garlic and herb powder over the lot, stirred it up and then mixed the the tuna flakes into it.

The mixture will still feel dry and crumble easily as you shape your balls. Add an extra egg if it feels too dry and cannot hold the shape. I chose to deep fry some and bake the rest.
Half of the balls went into the fridge, while I greased a baking tray with a little of the oil, the flattened the rest of the balls so that they would bake more easily. I preheated the oven then turned the heat down halfway when I put the tray in.

I checked after about 5-7 minutes and turned over those that were browning.

For the deep fried balls, I heated the oil in a small pot. With a smaller pot, you don't have to use as much oil to get the necessary depth needed (enough so that the balls can float) as you do witha bigger or shallower pot/pan. Make sure the oil is very hot. To make sure, put in a sliver of onion or a clove of garlic, when it browns and starts to go dark, pull it out, it would have flavoured you oil nicely and the oil is ready.

Fry the balls in batches and remove to a seive as soon as they are golden brown.

Serve with rice, yam, potatoes and gravy, or as finger food. 

Veggie Fish Sauce

As you may have noticed, I seem to be using quite a lot of fish in my cooking lately. I am trying to wean red meat from my diet and so naturally it falls on fish and chicken, maybe some pork but not much.

I find that oilier kinds of fish are tastier than their leaner cousins. Not to worry, fish fat can actually be good for you. The most easily accessible ones of these to me here are Salmon and Tilapia.

My seeming bias toward Tilapia happened completely by accident. I went fish buying and got an incredibly good deal so I bought a whole bunch. It would be impractical to go out and buy Salmon just so I don't blog about Tilapia again. So Tilapia it is : )

This was something I just threw together very quickly. About 20 minutes to cook the sauce and rice to go with it.

Ingredients:
2 whole Tilapia
4 small onion
7 tomatoes

1 green pepper

1/2 small squash
1 bulb garlic

I started by blending the bulb of garlic with one small onion. I then heated about 2 tablespoons of cooking oil and fried the onion/garlic puree.

 I added rice that had been washed and drained, and fried it for a few minutes. The aroma from this is incredible!! Do this for about 2 to 3 minutes and then add water and cook the rice as you normally would.

Go ahead and chop the onions, tomatoes, green pepper and squash into cubes. Whateve size you decide to make them, try and make them even, so the cook evenly.

My Tilapia was already cut into 3 pieces each, but I went ahead and cut each piece again into 3. I seasoned it simply with salt and black pepper.

In about a tablespoonful of cooking oil, start frying the Onions. You want the vegetables to remain crunchy so don't cook them too long. Add the tomatoes about a minute later. Then the squash.

As you continue to fry the vegetables and the juices from them start to simmer, add the fish. Crumble in one Maggi cube, stir it about a little and then leave covered.  This is just to quickly steam the fish.

About 2 minutes later add the green pepper and salt if necessary. Leave it uncovered to allow the moisture to reduce.

As soon as the rice is cooked, you are ready to eat.
Serve with sliced avocado.

Tilapia Soup

I have been having some trouble with my camera lately. So for now, I either don't blog/post anything, or I have to use my phone, which I did for this post. So please excuse the picture quality, I'm still working out my lighting and angles.

I don't particulary like fresh fish soup, but my husband loves it. So, I decided to make him some Tilapia soup. It turned out so good, I ate most of it myself. Who woulda thought?!

Ingredients:

2 large Tilapia (scaled and cut into 3 or 4 pieces each)
5 Garden eggs
6 Tomatoes
2 Onions
10 peppers
Salt.

Sprinkle a level teaspoonful of salt over the fish and toss it so all the pieces get some. Leave it to marinate.

Cut off the stalks on the garden eggs then slice them in half, lengthwise. Peel the onions then place them along with the tomatoes (still whole), pepper and halved garden eggs into 1 litre of water, cover and boil.

The tomatoes will cook first. When they are soft and almost breaking apart, take them and the pepper out and blend till smooth. Sieve using a colander. Take out 3 of the 5 garden eggs and pour the pureed tomatoes back into the pot. Pour watr over the 3 garden eggs to cool them, then remove the skin and seeds.

By the time you have done this, the onions should be cooked, so you can add them to the garden eggs and blend them  together. This will not be sieved so be sure to blend them thoroughly, then pour the mixture into the pot.

Add the Tilapia and cover. Add more water if it looks too thick. Check the salt in the soup and add more if necessary. Boil it gently until the fish is cooked, about 10 minutes.

Serve it just as it is, with the garden eggs left in the soup.

You could also eat it with fufu, banku, yam, potatoes or rice.

Enjoy and let me know how you liked it.

Kontomire with Chicken & Yam

Ghanaians enjoy a wide variety of meats and fish both fresh water and marine, and so tend to have more than one type in a dish. In Kontomire stew for instance, you could have beef, wele (cow skin), oysters and smoked tuna. For this recipe, chose to use just chicken. I don't think chicken mixes very well with other meats so I just use it on its own.

Ingredients I used are:
2 pounds chicken
1 pound washed chopped Kontomire leaves. (about GH¢0.50 worth)
1 1/2 cup ground Agushi (melon seed)
1 cup Palm oil
2 medium sized onions
1/2 onion (blended smooth)
10 - 12 medium sized tomatoes
15 - 20 kpakpo shito (green peppers)
1 tuber of yam
Maggi cube
salt

 

Start by removing the chicken skin, cutting it into desired sizes and washing it thoroughly.

Spice the chicken with 1/2 a blended onion, 1 maggi cube, some salt and black pepper. mix it all in and steam the chicken, just until it turns white and produces stock.

 

Chop the onions ...

 

... and blend the tomatoes together with the pepper.

 

Pour the Agushi into a bowl and add about 1/2 a teaspoon of salt to it,

 

then pour in enough water to cover it and leave it to soak.

The kontomire could be shredded from the stalks, boiled and mashed, or just chopped like i prefer.

Heat the palm oil in a pot and add onions. Fry until the onions are soft, then add the tomatoes and cover. Simmer it all down till it starts to fry. Stir it for about 3 minutes then add the chicken pieces. Fry a little more until it starts to stick.

Stir gently then add the kontomire.

 

Stir it in, add the stock and leave it to simmer

Add the soaked Agushi, stir it in gently and leave it to simmer. After a few minutes, the agushi starts to clump in the sauce. Stirring too much will break up the clumps, so either stir gently or lift the pot and 'shake' it to move this around.

 

Simmer it on a very low heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Only add extra salt after the stock and Agushi are in since they both contain salt.

Turn it off sooner if you reach your preferred thickness.

Peel the tuber of yam and cut into even pieces. Add enough water to cover all the yam, add some salt and boil. When a fork can pass through, it is ready. Pour off the excess water and serve with the knotomire stew.