If you are new to Accra, or you have lived here for years and stuck to the same lunch, this is a list worth working through. Ten Ghanaian dishes you can find across the city, what each one is, and how it usually comes.
Jollof rice
Rice cooked in a tomato and pepper base until it takes the colour and the flavour, usually served with chicken, fish or beef. It is the dish Ghanaians will argue about with Nigerians all day, and it turns up at every party.
Waakye
Rice and beans cooked together with dried millet leaves that give it its brown colour. It is a morning food, sold from a bowl by the roadside, and it comes loaded to order with gari, spaghetti, boiled egg, fish and shito.
Banku and tilapia
Banku is a smooth, slightly sour dough of fermented corn and cassava, moulded into balls. It is eaten with grilled tilapia and a raw pepper and onion sauce, and you eat it with your hand.
Fufu with light soup
Pounded cassava and plantain worked into a soft, stretchy mound that you swallow rather than chew, with a tomato-based light soup, often goat or fish. It is heavy, in the best way.
Kenkey with fried fish and pepper
Fermented corn dough wrapped in leaves and steamed, sour and firm, eaten with fried fish, ground pepper and shito. Ga kenkey and Fante kenkey differ, and people have strong views on which is better.
Red red
A bean stew cooked in palm oil, served with fried ripe plantain that turns sweet against the savoury beans. It is filling, cheap, and one of the easiest meals for someone who does not eat meat.
Kelewele
Ripe plantain cut into cubes and fried with ginger, pepper and spices, sold in the evenings from small stands. It is a snack more than a meal, and it goes fast when it is fresh.
Tuo zaafi
A soft, smooth meal of maize or millet from the north, eaten with a green ayoyo soup and often a piece of meat. It fills you up and keeps you going, which is the point.
Omo tuo
Rice pounded into soft balls and served in groundnut (peanut) soup, usually with meat or fish. It is a Sunday-afternoon kind of food, rich and slow.
Ampesi
Boiled yam, plantain or cocoyam served with a stew, often kontomire (cocoyam leaves) or garden egg. It is plain, home cooking, the sort of meal people miss when they travel.
You will find most of these at chop bars, from roadside sellers, or in any Ghanaian home that invites you to eat. Start with jollof and waakye, then work down the list.
