Agushie Stew

Naa Oyoo Quartey’s Ghana food blog gives an Agushie stew with tiger prawns and spinach, using blended Agushie, tomato, onion, palm oil and separate prawn-marinade and stew seasonings.

The author cleans and blends Agushie with water, seasons the cleaned, deveined prawns, and blends tomato, onion and fresh chilli. Prawns are briefly sautéed in palm oil and removed; chopped onion and tomato purée cook in that oil with tomato paste, stew spices and basil. Agushie is poured around the sauce in batches, covered and turned once curdled. Spinach and water are added and reduced until the sauce thickens. The prawns return to the sauce before a hot serving with chosen sides. These are the author’s steps, not a validated cooking-temperature protocol.

The prawn marinade lists cumin, chilli powder, salt and ginger powder. The stew seasoning separately lists chilli powder, aniseed labelled nkitinkiti, rosemary and garlic powder, fresh basil, chopped fresh chilli and salt.

Blended Agushie curdles in the covered sauce and is flipped; added water reduces with the spinach until the sauce thickens. The prawns are cleaned and deshelled in the ingredient list and deveined in the method.

Quartey explains that she chose spinach because Nkontomire was out of season and added prawns for this particular version. That substitution is part of her own account, rather than a mandatory ingredient formula for every Agushie stew.

The author offers rice, boiled yam, couscous, fonio, boiled plantain, gari or Ga Kenkey as possible accompaniments. Their preparations are not supplied and they are not simultaneous stew ingredients.

Before you order: ask what the Agushie product and tomato paste contain, which leafy green and seafood are used, what is in the palm oil and spice powders, how much chilli is added, and which side accompanies the portion.