Green Stew and Fried Sweet Potatoes

Here is another very popular recipe in Sierra Leone called Green.  We served them with friend sweet potatoes.

The sweet potatoes are a lot different here.  They can be either purple or white on the outside but always white on the inside.  They are also a LOT drier than sweet potatoes in the states or even regular potatoes.  I tried to just bake them once to have them with butter and honey but they were soooo dry and crumbly you had to use TONS of butter and honey to make it edible.  They also have a glue like surface.  When you peel them, you get this glue like substance on your hands and it is sooo sticky.  Robin and I had a hard time getting it off but Awutor told us yesterday that rubbing our hands with oil does the trick and it did!

Robin peeling the sweet potatoes

Fried Sweet Potatoes

Ingredients
Sweet Potatoes
salt to taste
palm oil

Directions
1.  Peel and slice sweet potatoes thinly
2.  add salt and mix

3.  fry in oil till golden brown

They were very tasty!  The kids like to eat them with ketchup because they taste like french fries!

Awutor had made green one other time, but I did not like it as well as the crain crain.  But I figured out why!  Awutor loves the Courtney children and wants them to like the local food but it is usually too spicy for them.  So she has been substituting the sweet pepper for the hot pepper.  I think it still tastes good but John and I LOVE the hot pepper! (him not quite as much as me lol!)

But today we had some visitors from Washington that are speaking at a conference that Chad is putting on this weekend and next.  So we wanted to make more traditional food.  Today, we set aside a little of the green without any peppers and then loaded the rest with hot pepper! I was so excited and ended up liking this as much if not more than crain crain.


Green Stew Recipe

Ingredients
4 cups country rice
2 bunches green (I think it is like a spinach?)
2 lbs beef steak
2 garden eggs (eggplant)
2 onions
1 clove of garlic
4-6 hot peppers
salt
oil
2 maggie cubes (beef buillion)

Directions
 1.  First we set to clean the rice to get the rocks out.  Country (I call it brown) rice is a local rice.  The harvesters dry the rice on the pavement and thus there are rocks in it.  So first, you manually sift through the rice picking out any visible rocks.  I had my trusty helper anabelle

 You can see the little rocks on the side of the pan

Then you must do a thorough rinsing of the rice.  After a good rinse, it becomes of process most like panning for gold.  You add water to your bowl of rice moving it in circles and slowly removing the rice and water.  Once you move most of the rice and water into a new bowl... you will find the rocks at the bottom of the bowl.  It is such a neat process.  You do have to repeat it a few times until you find no rocks at the bottom.  I will try it by myself next time without the help of Awutor.

2.  Next, wash and cut the greens.  Awutor chiffonades them in her hand.  I don't think I could ever do that... I would just use a cutting board.

3.  Cut the fat and most of the connective tissue and cut into cubes.  I bought this meat in the open market.  It cost about 22,000 Le or about $5.50.

4.  Add grated garlic clove and 1 maggie cube to meat and start cooking in a little bit of palm oil.  Cover with lid.

5. Slice garden egg thinly.  Add salt to it and massage.  Awutor says this helps get out the seeds of the garden egg which some people don't like.  Add to meat on the stove.

6.  Slice two onions and 4 hot peppers.  Add to meat/eggplant mixture.   Cook for 5 minutes.

7.  Add greens and let them steam.  Add another maggie cube.
8.  Serve over country rice!

Me and Awutor in her beautiful dress!  You can tell I'm a little flushed and sweaty after being in the hot kitchen!

I will try to post next about the wonderful birthday party the Courtneys threw for me!