What is Waakye?

What is Waakye?  Waakye ( ponounced waachay) is a ghanaian dish of cooked rice and beans. This dish is strikingly similar to the west Indian version, 'rice and peas'. Cooked using many of the same methods minus additional spices and herbs in the west Indian version. Waakye originated from northern Ghana, where rice and beans are staple food crops. And the  main ingredients  are Beans,Rice and Leaf. The rice is cooked with an indigenous leaf and and black eyed peas or kidney beans. It is commonly prepared at home, but is also sold by roadside vendors.

Waakye is mostly eaten for breakfast,lunch or dinner. A typical waakye meal usually consists of the cooked rice and beans, stew, some spaghetti and moist gari, boiled eggs, stewed meat or stewed/fried fish, stewed wele and vegeteble salad (which may include cabbage, onions and tomatoes). It may also be eaten with Kelewele (fried plantain).

How do you prepare Waakye?
 The dish requires about 15 minutes of preparation and an hour and half of cooking

Ingredients needed
2 cups of rice
1 cup red beans or black-eyed peas, or any kind of beans or peas
4 dry sorghum leaves(or 1 teaspoon of baking soda)
salt to taste
10 cups of water

Preparation
1.Wash and soak the beans in water for 3-4 hours.
2. Drain the beans and place them in a large pot of water.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil and let it cook for about for about 45 minutes
4. Wash the sorghum leaves
5. Cut leaves 3 to 4 inches, toss them in with the boiling beans, and allow them to cook together.
6. If sorghum leaves are not available, add a teaspoon of baking soda to give the Waakye its characteristic color.
7. Remove the sorghum leaves from the beans after 5 minutes.
8. Wash the rice and add to the beans in the pot, along with more water.
9. Allow the mixture to cook for 15-20 minutes until the beans are tender and the rice is cooked and all liquid has been totally absorbed.
10.Be sure that the mixture does not burn and keep stirring while it cooks.
11. Season with salt.
12. Serve the dish with pepper sauce and boiled egg and/or a stew of fish, chicken, beef , or vegetables.

Serve 5.