Akara (black-eyed pea fritters) with pepper sauce
Light, puffy West African fritters made from blended black-eyed peas, onion and chili, fried until golden and dunked in a sweet, smoky tomato and red pepper sauce.
- 40 min total
- 35 min hands-on
- Follow-a-recipe easy
- Serves 4
- About $1.49 a serving
- 560 calories
- Vegan
- Dairy-free
Dolly says: Read the steps once before you start. Everything goes smoother after that.
Ingredients
For 4 servings.
- 2 cans black-eyed peas, drained, rinsed and patted very dry
- 1 yellow onion, half roughly chopped, half thinly sliced
- 1 serrano pepper
- 1 red bell pepper, sliced
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp tomato paste
- 1 cup crushed tomatoes
- ½ French bread, for serving (optional)
From your pantry
- 1½ tsp salt, divided
- 2 tbsp water
- 3 tbsp all-purpose flour
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ⅔ cup vegetable oil, divided
- ¼ tsp cayenne pepper
- ½ tsp dried thyme
- 1 pinch sugar
Each serving has about 560 calories, 13 g protein, 47 g carbs and 38 g fat, and costs about $1.49 at typical US grocery prices. Both are estimates from what the recipe uses.
Missing something?
- No yellow onions? White onions or red onions work.
- No red bell peppers? Yellow bell peppers work.
- No crushed tomatoes? Diced tomatoes work.
- No French bread? Sourdough bread works.
Steps
Tap an underlined word for a quick explanation.
Blend the black-eyed peas, the onion, serrano, 1 teaspoon salt and the water for 1 to 2 minutes, scraping down the sides, until thick and fluffy.
Chop. Chopping means cutting food into bite-size pieces that don’t need to be neat. Keep them roughly the same size so everything cooks evenly.
How you’ll know: Your pieces are about half an inch and roughly alike, even if none of them are pretty.
Dolly’s tip: Blending air into the batter is what makes akara light, so let it run.Stir in the flour and baking powder.
Heat 2 tablespoons of the oil in a over medium heat and cook the onion and pepper 5 minutes, until soft.
Saucepan. A saucepan is a pot with tall, straight sides and one long handle. It’s for things that need depth, like rice, sauces or a few boiled eggs.
How you’ll know: The food fills it about halfway, leaving room to bubble without spilling over.
Slice. Slicing means cutting food into flat pieces of about the same thickness. Even slices cook evenly, so none are raw while others burn.
How you’ll know: Lay a few side by side: they’re close to the same thickness from one end to the other.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Stir in the garlic, tomato paste, cayenne and thyme for 1 minute, then add the tomatoes, each of salt and sugar, and 10 minutes.
Pinch. A pinch is what you can hold between your thumb and two fingers, less than an eighth of a teaspoon. It’s a small, forgiving amount, so there’s no need to measure.
How you’ll know: It’s a light sprinkle you can barely see on the food, not a little pile.
Simmer. Simmering means keeping a liquid just below a boil, with small bubbles rising gently. It cooks food evenly and lets a sauce thicken without scorching on the bottom.
How you’ll know: Small, lazy bubbles break the surface every second or so, and nothing is churning.
Medium heatTimer: 10 min
Heat the rest of the oil in a large over medium heat until it . It should cover the bottom of the pan in a thin layer.
Skillet. A skillet is a frying pan: wide and flat with low, sloped sides. The shape lets steam escape, so food browns instead of stewing.
How you’ll know: It’s the pan you’d fry an egg in, and a 10 or 12 inch one handles most recipes.
Shimmering oil. Oil shimmers when it’s hot enough to cook: its surface looks rippled and wavy, like heat over a road. That’s your cue to add the food, just before the oil would start to smoke.
How you’ll know: The oil looks wavy and runs thin like water when you tilt the pan, with no smoke yet.
Medium heat
Dolly’s tip: Drop in a tiny bit of batter to test. It should sizzle right away.Drop in tablespoons of batter, flatten them a little, and fry 2 to 3 minutes a side, until puffed and deep . Work in batches.
Heaping. Heaping means a rounded mound piled above the rim of the spoon or cup, not leveled off. It’s a little more than the measure, on purpose.
How you’ll know: The pile sits above the edge of the spoon, and you leave it there instead of scraping it flat.
Golden brown. Golden brown is the color of good toast, somewhere between yellow and light brown. It means the outside is cooked and crisp but not burnt.
How you’ll know: It looks like toast and smells toasty; dark brown with a bitter smell means it went too far.
Medium heatTimer: 5 min
Dolly’s tip: Don’t crowd the pan. Too many at once cools the oil and they turn greasy.on paper towels.
Drain. Draining means pouring off liquid, like tipping pasta into a colander or spooning extra fat out of the pan. Pour hot grease into a can or jar, not the sink, where it hardens and clogs the pipes.
How you’ll know: Only a few drips are left, and the food isn’t sitting in a puddle.
Serve the akara hot with the pepper sauce for dipping, and bread on the side.
Plan this in Dollop, and get the grocery list
Dollop puts this dinner on a night that suits your week, lists only what you still need to buy, and walks you through each step while you cook.
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