National Dishes of the World

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Waakye
Photo: daSupremo, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons

main dish vegan

Waakye

Rice and beans cooked with sorghum leaves that turn them reddish-brown, served with hot shito sauce and many sides.

Eaten in: Ghana

Prep
10 min
Cooking
1 h 15 min
Resting
8 h
Total
9 h 25 min
Servings
6

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About the dish

Waakye is Ghana's favourite breakfast and lunch from a street stall. Rice is cooked together with black-eyed or red beans and dried sorghum leaves or stalks, which give it a reddish-brown colour and a gently earthy aroma. The vendors serve it on leaves or in containers, and customers choose their own sides: hot shito sauce, gari, spaghetti known as talia, boiled egg, fried plantain, fish, meat in tomato stew or salad. The dish comes from Hausa and northern Ghanaian cooking but is eaten all over the country today.

Main ingredients

  • rice
  • black-eyed beans
  • dried sorghum leaves
  • salt

More: Wikipedia (en)

Recipe

Waakye

https://foodmap.ominuvo.com/dish/waakye

Ingredients

6 servings

6 servings

Method

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water, then drain.

  2. Cover the beans with 1.5 l fresh water, add the rinsed sorghum leaves and boil for 35–40 minutes until the beans are nearly tender and the water is deep red.

  3. Add the rinsed rice and salt and top up with water so it covers the rice by 1.5 cm.

  4. Cook covered over low heat for 20–25 minutes until the rice absorbs the liquid.

  5. Remove the leaves, fluff with a fork and leave covered for 5 minutes.

  6. Serve with shito, gari, boiled egg, fried plantain and tomato stew with meat or fish.

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