We’ve outlined all the ingredients and directions for you to make the perfect Akara. This dish qualifies as a Intermediate level recipe. It should take you about 1 day 20 min to make this recipe. The Akara recipe should make enough food for 4 to 6 servings.
You can add your own personal twist to this Akara recipe, depending on your culture or family tradition. Don’t be scared to add other ingredients once you’ve gotten comfortable with the recipe! Please see below for a list of potential cookware items that might be necessary for this Akara recipe.
Ingredients for Akara
- 1/2 pound dried black-eyed peas
- 2 onions
- 1 red pepper
- Salt
- Ground white pepper
- Olive oil
- 2 ripe tomatoes
- 1 green pepper
- 1/4 cup chopped parsley leaves
Directions for Akara
- Soak peas overnight in lots of water. Drain. Peel the outside skin from the peas.
- In a processor, pulse the 1 onion and red pepper to coarsely chop. Add soaked peas and puree to a paste. Transfer to a bowl and using a whisk, whisk the mixture adding salt, white pepper and just a little soaking liquid — not too much as the mixture needs to retain its shape for frying.
- Using an ice cream scoop, form into balls about the size of a ping-pong ball. Drop into a pot of hot olive oil, heated to 360 degrees F. Fry until golden brown. Remove to paper towel-lined plate. Season again with salt and pepper.
- Make a quick dipping sauce by pulsing 2 seeded tomatoes, 1 onion, 1 green pepper and some parsley in food processor. Add olive oil and season with salt and pepper. It should be a little chunky, but smooth enough to stick to the fried akara.
Cookware for your recipe
You will find below are cookware items that could be needed for this Akara recipe or similar recipes. Feel free to skip to the next item if it doesn’t apply.
- Cooking pots
- Frying pan
- Steamers
- Colander
- Skillet
- Knives
- Cutting board
- Grater
- Saucepan
- Stockpot
- Spatula
- Tongs
- Measuring cups
- Wooden Spoon
Categories in this Recipe
- African – African or Africans may refer to:
- Beans and Legumes
- Black-Eyed Pea
- Tomato – Lycopersicon lycopersicum (L.) H. Karst.Lycopersicon esculentum Mill.The tomato is the edible berry of the plant Solanum lycopersicum, commonly known as a tomato plant. The species originated in western South America and Central America. The Nahuatl word tomatl gave rise to the Spanish word tomate, from which the English word tomato derived. Its domestication and use as a cultivated food may have originated with the indigenous peoples of Mexico. The Aztecs used tomatoes in their cooking at the time of the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire, and after the Spanish encountered the tomato for the first time after their contact with the Aztecs, they brought the plant to Europe. From there, the tomato was introduced to other parts of the European-colonized world during the 16th century.Tomatoes are a significant source of umami flavor.The tomato is consumed in diverse ways, raw or cooked, in many dishes, sauces, salads, and drinks. While tomatoes are fruits—botanically classified as berries—they are commonly used as a vegetable ingredient or side dish.Numerous varieties of the tomato plant are widely grown in temperate climates across the world, with greenhouses allowing for the production of tomatoes throughout all seasons of the year. Tomato plants typically grow to 1–3 meters (3–10 ft) in height. They are vines that have a weak stem that sprawls and typically needs support. Indeterminate tomato plants are perennials in their native habitat, but are cultivated as annuals. (Determinate, or bush, plants are annuals that stop growing at a certain height and produce a crop all at once.) The size of the tomato varies according to the cultivar, with a range of 1–10 cm (1⁄2–4 in) in width.
- Main Dish
- Appetizer – An hors d’oeuvre (/ɔːr ˈdɜːrv(rə)/ or DURV(-rə); French: hors-d’œuvre (listen)), appetizer or starter is a small dish served before a meal in European cuisine. Some hors d’oeuvres are served cold, others hot. Hors d’oeuvres may be served at the dinner table as a part of the meal, or they may be served before seating, such as at a reception or cocktail party. Formerly, hors d’oeuvres were also served between courses.Typically smaller than a main dish, an hors d’oeuvre is often designed to be eaten by hand.
- Lunch – Lunch is a meal eaten around midday. During the 20th century, the meaning gradually narrowed to a meal eaten midday. Lunch is commonly the second meal of the day, after breakfast. The meal varies in size depending on the culture, and significant variations exist in different areas of the world.
- Pureeing Recipes
- Deep-Frying
- Gluten Free – A gluten-free diet (GFD) is a nutritional plan that strictly excludes gluten, which is a mixture of proteins found in wheat (and all of its species and hybrids, such as spelt, kamut, and triticale), as well as barley, rye, and oats. The inclusion of oats in a gluten-free diet remains controversial, and may depend on the oat cultivar and the frequent cross-contamination with other gluten-containing cereals.Gluten may cause both gastrointestinal and systemic symptoms for those with gluten-related disorders, including coeliac disease (CD), non-coeliac gluten sensitivity (NCGS), gluten ataxia, dermatitis herpetiformis (DH), and wheat allergy. In these people, the gluten-free diet is demonstrated as an effective treatment, but several studies show that about 79% of the people with coeliac disease have an incomplete recovery of the small bowel, despite a strict gluten-free diet. This is mainly caused by inadvertent ingestion of gluten. People with a poor understanding of a gluten-free diet often believe that they are strictly following the diet, but are making regular errors.In addition, a gluten-free diet may, in at least some cases, improve gastrointestinal or systemic symptoms in diseases like irritable bowel syndrome, rheumatoid arthritis, or HIV enteropathy, among others. There is no good evidence that gluten-free diets are an alternative medical treatment for people with autism.Gluten proteins have low nutritional and biological value and the grains that contain gluten are not essential in the human diet. However, an unbalanced selection of food and an incorrect choice of gluten-free replacement products may lead to nutritional deficiencies. Replacing flour from wheat or other gluten-containing cereals with gluten-free flours in commercial products may lead to a lower intake of important nutrients, such as iron and B vitamins. Some gluten-free commercial replacement products are not enriched or fortified as their gluten-containing counterparts, and often have greater lipid/carbohydrate content. Children especially often over-consume these products, such as snacks and biscuits. Nutritional complications can be prevented by a correct dietary education.A gluten-free diet may be based on gluten-free foods, such as meat, fish, eggs, milk and dairy products, legumes, nuts, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, rice, and corn. Gluten-free processed foods may be used. Pseudocereals (quinoa, amaranth, and buckwheat) and some minor cereals are alternative choices.
