Nigeria – Ewa Riro

by Mimi Joseph

Ewa Riro will tell the story of a stirred black-eyed peas’ taste. It is a loved and respected dish from Yoruba tribe in Nigeria, because of the long lasting cooked cuisine within the Yoruba speaking people. It also saves a day to many of the Nigerians since it is easy to prepare and takes as little as few steps to follow.

Nigeria is among the famous west African countries being bordered to the north by Niger, to the east by Cameroon, to the south by the Gulf of Guinea of the Atlantic Ocean, and to the west by Benin. It also takes large part of the west African land among the west African countries.

Ewa Riro cuisine can be prepared with a variety of meats or vegetables or else it can be plain black-eyed peas only.

It’s title “Ewa Riro” suggest that it is a stirred or stewed beans roast, this however doesn’t mean it to be stirred or stewed, because sometimes cooks may prepare the ingredients differently and combine them at the late steps of cooking.

The easiest way and simply time saving cooking mode is by mixing the ingredients together while cooking, this in other words will mix the ingredients taste from scratch.

As we move to the kitchen I will lead you the best and better way of preparing Ewa Riro. Don’t be amazed with black-eyed peas extinction in your area, honey beans may do the trick as well. Welcome to the Ewa Riro cuisine friend.

Ingredients

• 2 cups of black-eyed peas or honey beans
• palm oil
• 1 red bell pepper
• 1 medium onion
• 1 habanero pepper
• 1/2 tbsp seasoning powder
• salt

Cooking procedures

• Clean beans to remove stones or sand powder
• Clean other ingredients but don’t chop them.
• In a cooking pot with water, add beans and other ingredients except palm oil, salt and seasoning powder.
• Cook for about one hour and a half (1:30 hrs), this is an assumed time as I believe beans must be tender at this moment.
• Get off the ingredients from beans, and blend them altogether in a food processor.
• Put them back in a pot, add salt, seasoning powder and palm oil.
• Mix until well, then cook for 5 minutes more until the stew soup is heavy, remove from heat and serve.
• Fried bananas or any bread will give magic taste with this delicious dish, enjoy.