These days I have been seeing lots of posts on African cooking from my fellow bloggers and wanted to try a recipe myself.I was googling for vegetarian recipes from Africa and came across this wonderful snack---"Kelewele".I was amazed at all the wonderful recipes that are very similar to Indian cooking.I learned that there are many spices and vegetables that are commonly used by Indians and Africans.Going through these recipes I also understood that there are similarities in the cooking methods of both the authentic cuisines.
Coming to the recipe I am making now ,it is a very famous street food in Ghana.It is called Kelewele ----meaning "spiced plantains".I made this recipe from the information that I gathered from here and here and here .Kelewele is described as a delicacy prepared from ripe plantain well seasoned with ginger,chilli,onion, cloves,cinnamon and lemon juice and fried in hot oil to give it a mouth-watering flavour.
Main Ingredients :
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Plantain.........................1(small)
Lemon juice..................4 tsp
Salt................................to taste
Palm Oil......................... for frying( I used 2tbsp of Canola Oil)
Ingredients For Grinding :
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Yellow Onion................1/2( make a paste)
Ginger...........................2inch (paste)
Cayenne Pepper............2tsp (I used Paprika)
Cloves...........................4 (powdered)
Cinnamon......................small piece(powdered)
Preparation :
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Take a plantain .Wash it and peel it.Slice the plantain into 1/4 inch thick rounds .I used the bigger half for making these chips.(Don't throw the peel you can make chutney with it).
Make a paste of the onion and ginger.
Place onion-ginger paste, paprika, cloves-cinnamon powder and salt in a plate and mix them all together with lemon juice.
Once the masala is ready place the plantain pieces in the plate and coat them with the masala.
Meantime place the skillet on med-high pour the oil and heat it and once the oil is hot start frying them.
As I placed the plantain pieces in the pan of hot oil they soaked all the oil and there was no oil in the pan.I cooked it that way in the pan for 5minutes but did not feel good about it.(Original recipe calls for deep frying but I wanted to use less oil).
It needs more oil. I did not want to pour more oil in the pan so I transferred the chips into the baking tray and baked them in the toaster oven at 450F for 10 minutes.
Kelewle(plantain chips) tasted so good inspite of all my experimenting and they had a unique flavor.Sure were a hit.
Note :
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1) I am surely going to make these again as we all loved it , friends who were visiting loved them too.Next time it will be a completely baked snack .
2) Plantain should not be very firm nor ripe.
3) I had a very big plantain with me,so I used half of it to make this recipe.
4) I always have cloves-cinnamon powder ready for some dishes so I used that powder in the masla paste.
I am sending this to Bake Off Event hosted by Champa .
I am sending this to Bake Off Event hosted by Champa .
