West Africa · Volume 02, The Cassava-and-Bitter-Leaf Belt
Akara and olele
Sierra Leone breakfast and awujoh feast food
Illustration
- Time
- Hands on 30 minutes · Waiting 8 hours
- Researched
- Researched from 133 sources in the brief
As tradition built it
Serves 4 as a snack. Soak overnight, then 30 minutes.
Ingredients
- 400 g black-eyed peas (binch)
- 1 onion, chilli
- for deep frying oil, for deep frying, for akara
- as available banana leaf or foil, for olele
Method
- Soak the peas at minimum eight hours in cold water.
- Blend with the onion and chilli to a smooth, slightly aerated batter.
- For akara, deep-fry spoonfuls in the oil until golden and serve hot with a chilli sauce.
- For olele, pour the same batter into banana leaf or foil parcels and steam until firm, a denser, more substantial pudding form of the same base.
- Both are recognised, expected foods at awujoh, the memorial and life-cycle feasts held on the third, seventh and fortieth days after a death, and at births and weddings, prepared communally and shared with the wider neighbourhood as an act of remembrance.
What a modern chef changes
The batter aerated properly, and the two forms plated as a single considered dish rather than two separate snacks
Method
- Whip the batter by hand or on a stand mixer's low setting to genuinely aerate it before either frying or steaming: this changes the crumb of both the fritter and the pudding, not merely their appearance.
- Serve akara and olele together as a composed plate, a slice of the steamed olele alongside two or three fried akara and a bright chilli relish, rather than as two separate, unrelated snacks. The same bean, presented as its own dual technique, told as one story on the plate.
Notes
Part Four