Black Eyed Peas Please - Benin
My pancake travels now take me all the way from the Caribbean to northwest Africa. I will say that my journey to discover pancakes in Africa has been a big challenge thus far. I was unable to find a recipe for the last African country I visited. I feared the same might be true for Benin, but I eventually stumbled upon (no, not my new addiction stumble upon, I literally stumbled upon it through old fashioned web searching) a website called Food and Cooking in Benin from the University of Pennsylvania. Here I discovered that they eat a food for breakfast called akara in Benin. Next I searched for akara recipes, and I discovered they are a bean type of pancake (because black eyed peas are really a type of bean and not a pea). Alright! Now we have a name to search for a recipe. Well, the only akara recipes I was able to find were for Nigeria. I decided to go ahead and make the Nigerian akara recipe since they border each other. I figured it was probably the same type of preparation in both countries. If anyone from Benin happens to read this post and wants to email me their version of the bean pancake, let me know, and I'd love to make your version!
So here we go with the akara recipe I found. This is what you'll need to make akara:
1 bag of black eyed peas (I don't remember what size bag I used, but it was just the normal size bag you find in the grocery store)
1 large pinch of salt
water
First you need to bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place the beans in the water and boil for 1-2 minutes. This is so that you can loosen up the skin on the outside of the beans. After boiling, strain the water out of the beans.
Alternatively, you can also soak the beans for an hour or so. Now, if you take a look at this video, they say it is easy to take the outer skin off of the peas once it's been boiled. However, I didn't find it so easy to take them off. I watched almost an entire football game (which was pure torture for me as I loathe football) while I tried peeling the skins off. It was a terrible, time consuming process. Here are some pictures I took during this process:
The first picture was after about 15 minutes. This next picture is after a little over an hour.
Despite the fact that it looked like I had made good progress, I hadn't. I still had a lot of beans to take the skin off. I was tired of this process and felt like I had enough beans to make a few bean pancakes, so I stopped peeling the skin off of the rest. When you are finished peeling the skin off, you'll end up with an entirely white bean left. Place the beans in a blender and add enough water to make a thick paste. I can't give you exact measurements for this since I didn't use the entire bag of beans. I will show you some pictures though!
Once you have a thick paste, you're ready to scoop tablespoonfuls of the paste into a preheated pan of oil. I believe I used vegetable oil this time instead of olive oil. As always, use whatever type of oil you prefer. Gently flatten the mixture with the back of the spatula until you have a pancake shape.
Cook 3-4 at a time until golden brown on both sides.
While I didn't get as many as I'd hoped (because we were tired of peeling off the skin), I did get quite a few considering I only used about 1/4 of the bag of beans to make them.
If I could find an easier way to take the skin off of these, I would definitely make these again! These were fantastic! Besides being tasty, they also give you a large amount of protein per serving (1/2 cup of blacked eyed beans contains about 19 grams of protein). So despite the fact that they are fried in oil, at least you're getting a nice amount of protein as well. If you have the time to spend and are brave enough to peel them, go ahead and give these a try. Enjoy!
So here we go with the akara recipe I found. This is what you'll need to make akara:
1 bag of black eyed peas (I don't remember what size bag I used, but it was just the normal size bag you find in the grocery store)
1 large pinch of salt
water
First you need to bring a large pot of water to a boil. Place the beans in the water and boil for 1-2 minutes. This is so that you can loosen up the skin on the outside of the beans. After boiling, strain the water out of the beans.
Alternatively, you can also soak the beans for an hour or so. Now, if you take a look at this video, they say it is easy to take the outer skin off of the peas once it's been boiled. However, I didn't find it so easy to take them off. I watched almost an entire football game (which was pure torture for me as I loathe football) while I tried peeling the skins off. It was a terrible, time consuming process. Here are some pictures I took during this process:
The first picture was after about 15 minutes. This next picture is after a little over an hour.
Despite the fact that it looked like I had made good progress, I hadn't. I still had a lot of beans to take the skin off. I was tired of this process and felt like I had enough beans to make a few bean pancakes, so I stopped peeling the skin off of the rest. When you are finished peeling the skin off, you'll end up with an entirely white bean left. Place the beans in a blender and add enough water to make a thick paste. I can't give you exact measurements for this since I didn't use the entire bag of beans. I will show you some pictures though!
Once you have a thick paste, you're ready to scoop tablespoonfuls of the paste into a preheated pan of oil. I believe I used vegetable oil this time instead of olive oil. As always, use whatever type of oil you prefer. Gently flatten the mixture with the back of the spatula until you have a pancake shape.
Cook 3-4 at a time until golden brown on both sides.
While I didn't get as many as I'd hoped (because we were tired of peeling off the skin), I did get quite a few considering I only used about 1/4 of the bag of beans to make them.
If I could find an easier way to take the skin off of these, I would definitely make these again! These were fantastic! Besides being tasty, they also give you a large amount of protein per serving (1/2 cup of blacked eyed beans contains about 19 grams of protein). So despite the fact that they are fried in oil, at least you're getting a nice amount of protein as well. If you have the time to spend and are brave enough to peel them, go ahead and give these a try. Enjoy!
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