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Beans

The famous Ewa Aganyin – my journey to getting it right

My sister taught me how to make the Aganyin stew over the phone. She in turn was taught by a friend, while she was at University. I was living in Abuja, when she called excitedly to tell me, she had cracked the Aganyin recipe (or so she thought, until coincidence + providence smiled on me a few days ago). We both squealed with delight. Mummy didn’t allow us eat “outside” while we were growing up. Ewa Aganyin and Ojojo were the only two exceptions she made because they were served hot, so less chance of food poisoning. We spent the most part of our early years on Shipeolu Street in Lagos, and the Togolese women who sold Ewa Aganyin lived closed by, so we were usually one of their first customers. The clanging noise of a metal spoon hitting a pot, which heralded the approach of the Ewa Aganyin seller is an unforgettable memory of my childhood. It is one of those things that sadly my children will never get to experience. As soon as we heard that unmistakable noise, we literally flew outside with out plates.

Ewa Aganyin was pricey. I remember that 20 Naira (which was a lot of money) wouldn’t buy you that much, because your plate was empty in minutes. Lol. Ewa Aganyin is not complete without Agege bread. Match made in foodie heaven. Writing this is just flooding my head with memories. Memories of my late grandma, my uncles that I haven’t seen in over 15 years, my aunties, my cousins, friends and neighbours I haven’t seen since we moved to Ikeja. Funny, how food has the power to evoke past memories. Ewa Aganyin was a weekend family breakfast the whole house and even community enjoyed. My childhood home was one of the first houses on the street, so when the Aganyin woman dropped her pot, you had people from neighbouring houses rushing over to our house, because all her stock will be sold at our doorstep. Things were good then, security wasn’t a problem. We had what you would call a porch, and no big iron gates, so the front of our house was open and free to anyone passing by. Even people from other streets were on the queue. Sometimes, to settle disputes the Aganyin woman had to ration the beans per house, just so it could go round. It was truly a neighbourhood meeting point. It created communal time, and we got to gist and catch up. Parents, grandparents and children alike. Good, times, good times. Sadly, Shipeolu Street is not the same anymore. It makes me sad anytime I go home, and I see how much things have deteriorated.

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Get out the Agege bread and scoop

There are many myths about the Aganyin stew, I will be debunking some of them now. Adding fresh pepper of any variety, including tomatoes I believe is a Triple NO. All the peppers used are in their dried form. I know I have rambled on a bit, but I have to tell you the funny bit of making this. My sister taught me to use Cayenne pepper (dry pepper) and dried shombo pepper. Which I have always used. Never truly gotten the taste right, but it was close. I’ve had Ewa Aganyin on my mind since last week, and I searched my entire store, kitchen cupboards and couldn’t find dried shombo pepper. This occupied my mind greatly. I have read The Secret many times, and one of its key points is, when you think certain thoughts with so much intensity, they manifest faster. Aaaah. During my search I came across Cameroon/Ghana pepper. I thought to myself, this could work too you know. Another reason why my mum must never read this. She brought this for me in 2011 – first time using it. Shortly before I started, I suddenly remembered my raw brown beans. You see, I didn’t have the need to open the beans container, because I already had boiled beans, (albeit white beans) in the freezer. And there it was, sitting pretty amongst my raw brown beans – dried shombo pepper. Whoop, whoop. Saved. I should have discarded the Cameroon pepper, but I said to myself, Cameroon is not that far away from Togo is it? (I can hear my Geography teacher fainting, because I got an A in WAEC. Lol). This may just be that something extra that I need to get the correct taste. I truly believe it was.

Ewa Againyin has three characteristics

  • The beans are mashed proper and I mean proper, you can’t see any whole beans
  • The stew is dark almost black and very oily – emphasis on dark and not “orangey” like stew
  • The stew is gritty or crunchy to taste

I got all three

You will need – Serves 2 – 3 people

3 cups of white beans – why white beans? you are about to find out

1 teaspoon of dry pepper

1/2 red onion

2 pieces of Cameroon/Ghana pepper

1/4 cup of dried shombo pepper –

Palm oil

Salt

Pictures of the ingredients 

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Ghana/Cameroon Pepper and dried shombo

How to

The Beans

1. Pick the beans and boil in water till it absorbs all the water. If you cook white beans in enough water, it retains its pale colour. What I did to darken it was to let it absorb all the water just as with rice and continue cooking. If you’ve ever forgotten a boiling pot of white beans on the cooker before, you will know exactly what I mean. Sure, it will burn a little, but it shouldn’t be a problem as you get the added bonus of a smokey flavour which is part of the Ewa Aganyin taste

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yes, this is white beans

Once the beans have darkened as you can see from the colour above, the beans will still be whole, which is not what you want. So, scoop it out of the pot into another pot, add more water and continue boiling. Why another pot? Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: the bottom of the first pot contains burnt bits of beans. By adding more water, you will lift those burnt bits off the base of the pot, and it will ruin your beans, so use another pot to be on the safe side. 

2. With the beans now boiling in another pot, leave it to boil until it begins to form a thick creamy sludge. The heat will break bits of the beans down to form a creamy sludge. This sludge will not form if there is too much water in the pot. If after a while you haven’t achieved this it means you have too much water in the pot, decant some of it and let it continue boiling. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: this picture below is the consistency you should be aiming for. With the beans having absorbed the water but still soggy and sludgy. Unfortunately, I cannot give you timings because this was already boiled beans from the freezer. Just follow the recipe and observe the beans

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3. Use a wooden spoon and mash the beans against the sides of the pot. Do this until you have a paste. If you remeber Ewa Aganyin well, it always tasted like baby food save for the gritty sauce. I could never see the beans whole. Ewa Aganyin was soft, and smooth on the tongue.

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The Togolese woman would pour a heaped spoon on your plate, spread it out and pour the sauce on top

You are probably still wondering, Dunni why white beans? This wasn’t intentional, but sheer providence because I have always used brown beans. I was having a weevil problem with my white beans, so a few weekends ago I decided to pick the whole lot, boil plainly and freeze. Way better than having weevils chew through everything. This meant no need to boil a fresh batch of brown beans. I simply brought out the beans from the freezer and started from Step 2. After seeing the colour and tasting the end product, I strongly believe that the Aganyin women use white beans and not brown. I may be wrong, but the taste and colour of the beans on its own was different from my prior trials with brown beans, and it closely matched the beans the Togolese women hawked in their pots. It even smelled the same. Henceforth I will stick with white beans as my recipe.

While the beans are boiling, crack on with the pepper sauce

The Aganyin fried sauce

1. Soak the dried components in water to soften, which makes it easier to blend. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: use water sparingly, just enough to cover it because some of the essence of the pepper will drain out into the water, which you will also use in blending.

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Once the peppers are soft and plump. Roughly blend. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: even though it is a rough blend, the seeds must also blend, if not the Aganyin sauce will be full of pepper seeds and it wont taste nice. 

SAM_6329

Add more of the water you soaked it in, just a bit to dilute the thickness. Do NOT boil this pepper. 

2. Bleach the palm oil in a deep pan. I used roughly 1/4 cup. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: use more, way more. I will explain shortly. Let the palm oil bleach under high heat until it turns dark brown. NOT Black.

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Early stages of bleaching

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Later stages of bleaching – almost like the colour of brandy

3. Dice the onions while the palm oil is bleaching.

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Once you have achieved the dark brown colour, turn off the heat and throw in the onions. If you don’t turn of the heat, the onions will burn very fast.

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Let it fry till the onions till it starts to burn then add the cayenne pepper. This will cause the oil to form bubbles. Turn the heat back up TO LOW and sprinkle in salt. NO SEASONING CUBES. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: if you use high heat, it will burn without you knowing it and ruin you sauce. This happened to me a lot, until I decided to try low heat and BOOM!. Frying cayenne pepper with the onions is one of the reasons why the sauce is gritty.  As soon as you start to fry, the aroma will start reminding you of the Aganyin sauce. Lol.

SAM_6344

4. Still under low heat, add the blended pepper in bits every 1 minute. By doing this, you are boiling and frying in a cyclic process. Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: In Step 3, I wrote down add more water after roughly blending. I always fried the pepper as a thick paste just as you would with stew and the sauce always tasted burnt. I added more water on this attempt and I got a better result. Apparently making the pepper into a runny watery paste allows it to boil in the oil before frying. The boiling process will also soften the fried onions, making it taste sweet. I noticed the difference with this trial and the aroma told me I hit the jackpot with this change in method. Another dancing in my kitchen moment. Lol.

SAM_6351

is the colour bringing back memories?

This method plus the introduction of the Cameroon/Ghana pepper saved the day. Ghana borders Togo anyway (I got that bit of geography right, lol), so they must share the same pepper – me thinks

5. When all the pepper has been introduced into the pan, keep stirring and simply let the sauce fry. As it fries you will see the colour getting darker, and the sauce getting grittier. You will also be able to notice the change in aroma. The heat is low, so just continue frying till the palm oil floats to the top with bubbles.

SAM_6354

Dooney’s Kitchen Tip: this is why the palm oil I stated above is too small. As I fried, the volume of oil kept reducing. I am going to come out and be honest here. In a bid to create the Aganyin oily effect, I added water and fried it again, but it just went on a bend after that. I am telling you my mistakes, so you don’t have the same problems. It tasted okay, but the aganyin flavour got lost. As I had to re-season with a sesoning cube (wrong move) and re-fry, it ended up tasting burnt. So, make sure you have PLENTY palm oil. 

I redeemed myself and made another batch yesterday.

I followed the same method and I did not need a seasoning cube at all. Just salt, and I only added it once. I also did not add any water and I got the Aganyin taste I was looking for, including the taste of the oil and the gritty sauce. I still used a little palm oil because I only wanted to replicate the taste, so I didn’t mind that compromise especially as I had a big oily batch in the fridge from the day before. From the picture below you can see what I meant by the more you fry, the less oil you end up with. This picture is a great example of what you will end up with if you don’t have enough oil. The pepper absorbs it all.

SAM_6516

Batch 2 – the winner. I am very pleased

Here is what I noticed. As you are frying and the pepper is absorbing the oil and is still frying, you have to be tasting very frequently because this sauce will burn and you won’t even realise. I was being paranoid about ending up with a burnt taste, so with every stir, I was tasting. At some point, you will get that perfect taste, crunch and sweetness of the onions. Go too much further and you will migrate into burnt zone and there is no coming back from there. I used about half of the measurements above and I stopped right about the 4 – 5 minute mark.

SAM_6521

If you remember, the Togolese women sold Ewa Aganyin with more oil than the gritty sauce, I am guessing partly for economics and partly because this sauce is very spicy, so to enjoy it you need to end up with more of the oil than above, unless you are a guru with pepper. Bleaching another batch of oil and adding it to the sauce at the end is a no no. Don’t even attempt it. The oil in the sauce has already been flavoured with the rest of the ingredients. So, remember to start with enough oil or have a glass of milk by your side to take care of the heat.

……………Here is my Tower of Ewa Aganyin. Bon Appetite

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I hope I am bringing some of that Ewa Aganyin magic into your homes, especially for Saturday morning breakfast tomorrow. If you had a similar Ewa Aganyin experience as mine, you probably had an amazing childhood. If per chance, you lived on Shipeolu street, I am sending big hugs down to you. We may have played in the same compounds. Have a nice weekend people.

SAM_6450

Just imagine scooping that with Agege bread

Off to the Nigerian food store to pick up Agege bread on saturday morning


162 Comments

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FILED UNDER: Beans
TAGGED WITH: ewa aganyin, ewa agoyin, togolese pepper sauce
Dooney

About Dooney

Dooney is the blogger, recipe developer and photographer for Dooney's Kitchen. I spend my days trying to figure out creative ways to redefine Nigerian food, either by creating a new dish itself using ingredients in ways that have never been used before, or changing the approach to Nigerian cooking using kitchen gadgets.

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Comments

  1. Avatarladi stephen says

    February 19, 2015 at 2:43 pm

    Wow. Just getting to read this, and cant wait to try it out. Your write well.
    Please what do you mean by cayenne pepper? I live in Lagos.

    Reply
    • dooneyrooneydooneyrooney says

      February 19, 2015 at 4:20 pm

      Hi Ladi, a good substitute is dry pepper. As you live in Lagos though, ask for dried shombo in the market

      Reply
  2. AvatarTolulope says

    March 7, 2015 at 12:47 am

    I tried this today, it was a disaster at first, i think i let it burn, it tasted bitter and too spicy with not enough oil, but i refused to be defeated and i did a second batch, it was perfect… it tasted and smelled like aganyin, and i nailled the beans too using white beans. Everyone in the house was asking where i bought so much ewa agoyin from. Dooney thank you for this blog, this days whenever i want to make a nigerian meal, i m like how does dooney do it and i come and check here.

    Reply
    • dooneyrooneydooneyrooney says

      March 7, 2015 at 7:11 pm

      That’s the spirit. Whoop, whoop. My first trial was a disaster too. Pleased you stuck with it.

      Reply
  3. Avatartiti oluyori says

    March 10, 2015 at 11:09 am

    Hello Dooney! I lived on ShyllonStreet off Bode Thomas at Palmgroove all my childhood and I could relate to this! Ewa again was a life saver then! Sweet good old memories. I can see myself and my siblings in front of the Ewa agoin sellers now…crying that it is too small…lol! with fresh agege bread you can’t miss it! I’m heading straight to my kitchen now..ewa agoin here u come!

    Reply
  4. AvatarOre says

    March 20, 2015 at 3:59 am

    Hi dooney,

    I have the blended cameroon pepper but not the dried shombo. Do I combine with dried chilli peppers from the other recipe or do I just go ahead with ata gungun? Thanks

    Reply
    • dooneyrooneydooneyrooney says

      March 20, 2015 at 10:22 am

      The shombo is to replace the chilli peppers if you live in Nigeria. Combining both will be toooooo hot (peppery)

      Reply
      • AvatarOre says

        March 21, 2015 at 4:56 pm

        Hi Dooney,

        So what do I do? Dried cameroon only? or dried cameroon and ata gungun? Thanks

        Reply
        • dooneyrooneydooneyrooney says

          March 21, 2015 at 6:12 pm

          dried cameroon pepper only

          Reply
          • AvatarOre says

            March 21, 2015 at 6:16 pm

            Okay, Thanks alot!!!

  5. AvatarTolani Adeyekun says

    March 24, 2015 at 12:16 pm

    I tried the ewa agayin dis morning and it was delicious..my stomach was actually praying for you, dooney…lol. I have been craving it for months. Can’t thank u enough. Well done! Well done!! Well done!!! In Joke Silva’s voice

    Reply
    • AvatarFunmi says

      May 30, 2015 at 6:50 pm

      So happy I made my own ofada sauce….Thanks so much

      Reply
  6. AvatarShecookstoo! says

    July 28, 2015 at 11:05 am

    Stumbled on this blog and was so excited to see an ewa aganyin recipe! It’s been ages since I had this, God bless you Dunni. One question, how do you bleach the palm oil without stinking out the whole house? I read somewhere that you can just cover the pot, but is it safe to cover hot oil?

    Reply
  7. AvatarToluwalope says

    July 30, 2015 at 2:29 pm

    I tried the Ewa Aganyin today and it was fantastic except that I added alot of Cameroon pepper which made it a bit pepperish. Next trial would be better. Thanks and God Bless Dooneyskitchen

    Reply
  8. AvatarChineze says

    September 15, 2015 at 11:25 am

    i am so happy i found this. i was so close to taking a pen and paper and head down the street to the local seller, to ask her how to make it. Lo and behold i see your post on instagram and i’m super excited. I am a beans evengalist, i can eat bean for the nation…lol.

    Reply
  9. Avatarevenda o says

    September 16, 2015 at 7:02 pm

    see me grinning from ear to ear… taste buds already tasting the food from the pictures alone… i will have to try dis veryy soon or will be eating this in my sleep..haha..
    thanks dooney for this recipe

    Reply
  10. AvatarGift says

    October 25, 2015 at 10:34 am

    U ar a darling..

    Reply
  11. AvatarSean says

    June 10, 2016 at 6:31 am

    Hi Dunni…been a fan for a long time…but not sure my comments ever come through.hoping this does.i feel it’ll be unfair to keep using your recipes without giving credit…you are doing a great job and ppl like me really appreciate ur efforts.may God bless your hands IJN. Amen. tried this after a long time…missed d point where i should have turned the fire off.it burned alittle nevertheless my husband asked for more.
    Thanks a lot for tips.sometimes one may not understand what youre saying until they experience the process so will try out another time.

    Reply
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Hi, my name is Dunni Obata, and I am what you would call the poster child for redefining Nigerian food. Welcome to Dooney's Kitchen, the home of Nigerian centric food, detailed recipes and sharing personal stories. Read more...

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