Recipe; Tasty Agushi Stew

Photo credit - Betumiblog.blogspot.com

Ingredients

• 4 oz agushi seeds (about a cup), ground or unground
• 7-8 ounces of smoked fish (I'm using smoked whiting today), after bones and skin are removed
• 2 good-sized ripe tomatoes (plus a Tablespoon of tomato paste if you like)
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) of palm oil (dzomi if available)
• a small piece of salted cod (about an inch cube, about 1/3 of an ounce), or koobi (salted tilapia)
• 1 large onion (about a cup, chopped)
• fresh red pepper to taste.

1. If the agushi is not ground, grind it in a blender. Mix it with a cup of water and set aside until later.
2. To remove some of the salt, I rinse and soak the salted fish in hot water while I prepare the other ingredients.
3. If the fish has bones and skin remove them and discard.
4. Peel and chop the onion.
5. Prepare the pepper and garlic (I grind mine together in a blender with about a Tablespoon of water). You will need to judge your preference for heat. You can always adjust the heat later by adding more ground dried red pepper later.
6. Chop the tomatoes (if you want to be extra fancy, peel and seed them first--drop in scalding water, then cold, to remove the peelings, and grind them in a blender). Mix in a Tablespoon of tomato paste if you like.
7. Heat a heavy frying pan on the stove top, add the oil and chopped onions, stir well, then add the salted fish.
8. Fry together on medium heat for several minutes, then add the pepper and garlic and cook a couple more minutes, then add the tomatoes and tomato paste.
9. Stir in the smoked fish.
10. Stir the agushi to see that all of the lumps are gone.
11. Stir the agushi-water mixture into the stew, lower the heat, then cover and allow it to simmer, without stirring, for half an hour.
12. The cooked agushi will look a little like scrambled eggs.
13. If you're like me, go ahead and skim off any oil that has risen to the top (or just stir it back into the stew) and check the seasonings. Add some dried red pepper if it isn't spicy enough for you. I cannot imagine it needing more salt, but add some if you must.