I was told to begin my journey to Dantokpa in the early morning, at the advice of a local friend and tour guide named Jean-Paul Houndagnon, a Beninese citizen who helped me find backroad cafés and Vodou markets in neighboring Togo. My father loved this recipe, but unfortunately my brother was a bit undecided.A traditional West African okra stew requires two to three pounds of okra, a vegetable used in Louisiana gumbos as well, that was originally brought to North America by enslaved Africans. Loved it!!! A couple suggestions for making it a 4**** recipe: 1) omit yams and replace with Yukon if you're not in the mood for sweet carb, 2) begin with 1/2 an onion, chopped, and 6 cloves garlic, sliced, sauteed with bay leaves until carmelized. As another reviewer suggested, I added onion and sauteed it with garlic in olive oil first, and added chicken stock (1/3 cup). I didn't use okra (but will next time) and only had regular peas (which were fine). A bit of brown sugar (1 tbsp.) helps offset the spiciness. For variety, I added Yukon potatoes to the sweet potatoes (not the same as yams). Quite a good vegetarian recipe, with some modifications. While it's not a bad dish, it's not particularly good, either. I sauteed onion and garlic in oil before I started, but even that didn't make much of an improvement. It sounded absolutely delicious, but it was rather ordinary. Next time, I'll use a lot less okra - not crazy about the texture - and add even more potatoes to give it a bit more chunkiness. Mixing yukon with sweet potatoes, sauteeing garlic and olive oil, and adding chicken broth are all good suggestions. I followed another reviewer's advice and added 1 tbsp of brown sugar, which made it a bit too sweet for my taste. Next time will add okra after all is completely cooked. However, I needed to cook peas for longer than recipe said, so the okra began to fall apart. Yummy!!! To the last reviewer, reading the recipe I took it to mean that you cook the black-eye peas before adding them to the mixture. My grocery store did not have frozen black-eye peas, so I used one can instead. My husband stated this was the best soup I had ever made. I started this dish by carmelizing about 1/2 a sweet onion. My husband described it as reminding him of the southern "everything in the pot" left overs. I love all the ingredients on their own, but this tasted OK. It is perfect when you are planning a Mardi Gras party and some of your friends are vegetarians. Also used some of my vegetable broth for more liquid (no mention of added liquid in recipe?) Served with rice on the side of the bowl, homemade sourdough bread as garlic toast (had two fresh loaves), and that was tasty, though would serve cornbread next time as the usual with okra. Substituted one can black beans I had on hand, also one sweet onion, sauteed, and it added that touch of sweet without the sugar. We have a garden so fresh okra and fresh corn, instead of the frozen, and a couple sweet and one Hot banana peppers. We keep this in the rotation for variety and because it's a good way to use up leftover veggies (you can pretty much dice up and throw in whatever you've got!) This is quite good (especially for an okra lover like me), but to be honest the sweet potato and pinto bean chili recipe (also on this site) is similar and much tastier. It was okay but not good enough to do again. I also used a can of beans rather than the peas. I didnt have all the ingrediants on hand when i made this so i also made a few substitutions - i used plain canned tomatoes but added a couple cans of peeled green chiles, i used canned black eyed peas, and i couldnt find okra so i used zucchini instead, i also tossed in some greenpeppers and popcorn shrimp.i also used a bit more spice than the recipe calls for.id definitely make it again I just checked and they do not have any Cajun-style tomatoes: Whatever recipe writers!Īnyway, I would definitely make again but use regular chili powder next time. I live in a good size city and I was not able to find any in the local mercado latino. I used regular tomatoes rather than Cajun or Mexican style ones as I have no idea where to obtain Cajun or Mexican style tomatoes. I was afraid it would not be good but it was (although I did not need hot sauce). I didn't have regular chili powder so I used chipotle instead. I generally like recipes that I don't have to go out and buy a lot of fresh ingredients for-in this case, the only thing I had to get was the sweet potato.
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