Red red

Ingredients

• 2 cups dried black-eyed beans, or 2 cans, drained
• ½ cup red palm oil
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 3 garlic cloves and a thumb of ginger, grated
• 2 tbsp tomato paste and 2 tomatoes, chopped
• 1 scotch bonnet pepper, chopped (to taste)
• 1 tbsp ground crayfish or 1 smoked fish, flaked (leave out for a meat-free stew)
• 1 seasoning cube
• Salt
• 4 ripe plantains, yellow with black spots
• Oil for frying
• Gari, to sprinkle

Steps

1. Cook the beans

   Pick over and rinse the beans, and soak them overnight if you can. Boil in fresh water until soft but still whole: about 30 minutes if soaked, up to an hour if not. Drain and keep a cup of the cooking water. (Canned beans skip this step.)

2. Make the stew base

   Warm the palm oil over medium heat and cook the onion for 5 minutes. Add the garlic and ginger for 1 minute, then the tomato paste for 2 minutes. Add the tomatoes and pepper and cook for 8 minutes, until soft and thick.

3. Simmer the beans

   Add the beans, the crayfish or fish, the crumbled cube and a splash of the bean water. Simmer for 10 minutes, mashing a few beans against the pot to thicken it. Taste for salt.

4. Fry the plantain

   Peel the plantains and cut them on the diagonal. Fry in hot oil for 2 to 3 minutes per side, until deep golden, and sprinkle with a pinch of salt.

5. Serve

   Spoon the beans onto plates with the plantain alongside, and sprinkle gari over the beans for crunch.

Tips

• The riper the plantain, the sweeter and redder it fries. Mostly black skins are fine.
• Without fish or crayfish, red red is meat-free. Check the seasoning cube if you need it fully vegan.
• Leftover beans keep 4 days in the fridge and get thicker: loosen with a little water.
• A pressure cooker cooks unsoaked beans in about 20 minutes.