A little Ghanaian food?

My friend Suweiba has been teaching me to cook Ghanaian style - I thought I'd include a couple of my favourite recipes. Be warned, there aren't any measuring cups involved, so just . . . taste and see! PS pepe = hot pepper, dried and ground

Jollof Rice
(serves about 6 “plenty”)

Ingredients

1 small cabbage
cooking oil (palm oil is best)
salt
tomato paste (2 small cans . . . 70 grams each)
2 small onions
3 rectangles of Maggi (broth cubes)
1 sachet ONGA (more broth)
nutmeg (small bag . . . about 3 tbsp)
curry powder (same amount as nutmeg)
pepe
4 cups rice
beef (about 2 steaks worth, cut into cubes)

Cooking Directions

Wash the meat and sprinkle it with salt. Place the meat in a pot and add enough water to just cover it. Add one handful of diced onions, and heat. Add one cube of Maggi. When the meat is mostly brown, remove from the heat.

In a new pot, heat about one cup of oil. When the oil is hot, add a handful of diced onions. Add the meat, conserving the water, and fry it in the oil. Remove the meat again (it should now be fully cooked). Add the rest of the diced onions, the tomato paste and some water. Add ONGA and all of the spices, stirring between each addition. Be careful with the pepe! Add the broth from the original meat pot. The sauce should be quite thick. Remove a half cup of the sauce and keep it to the side. Add about three cups of water to the sauce and some salt to taste. Let the sauce boil.

When it has boiled, remove some of the soup to make room for the rice and the shredded cabbage. Add the rice and the cabbage, and let boil. Continue to stir while the rice is cooking, to ensure it does not stick to the bottom of the pan. When all of the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is well cooked, remove from the heat. Serve on plates, to with meat and the extra sauce conserved previously. Eat with your natural spoon, but remember to wash well with soap and water before you begin!

Rice Balls and Groundnut Soup

Ingredients

2 cups rice
1 medium cabbage
1 tin tomato paste
1 small onion
2 rectangles Maggi
1 sachet ONGA
2 small fish/ equivalent amount of meat
2 cloves of garlic
pepe to taste
1 cup of groundnut paste (natural peanut butter should do)

Cooking Directions

Boil a pot of water with salt, and add the rice. The water should be absorbed so that the rice is very sticky. If necessary, remove some of the rice. Dice the cabbage. Cut the meat into small chunks and wash. When the water in the rice is almost entirely absorbed, stir it like tz until it becomes very thick. If you need to thicken the rice, add some flour. When it is very thick, form it into fist-sized balls. Put the meat in a little water and salt, and heat. Add half of the onion, diced. Remove the meat from the heat. Place a pot of water on heat, and add pepe to taste. Add the groundnut paste, and the tomato paste with some water. Crush the cloves of garlic, and add with some water. Add the meat and the ONGA, along with some salt if needed. Add the diced cabbage and the Maggi. Cook until the meat is well cooked and the cabbage is soft. Serve one rice ball to each person, with the soup poured on top.