Ghana Night 2015

Post date: 23-Apr-2015 07:56:49

On the 9th May we are lucky to have Nana cooking us her ever-popular Ghana night. New on the menu for this year are several delicious sounding dishes including Ghanaian doughnuts - Bof-Rot, worth a visit for the name alone! Nana is just back from a visit to Ghana and has this to tell us:

********

Where are you from?

A question I’m often asked and with a plethora of possible answers. My mother came to England from Ghana when she was ten, my father from the same place, to study medicine in Aberdeen. With only one childhood visit (which I hated!) growing up, Ghana was a faraway place, almost mythological, in terms of my background.

Over the past few years, and quite probably, in a bid to find out more about myself, I’ve been increasingly curious to discover more about this beautiful country. As I discovered on a recent visit this month, it takes time. In many ways, as the child of immigrant parents, I will always be ‘obrene’, not a local, but an English girl in Ghana. Despite this, and without any shred of bias, Ghana is just one of those places that gets under your skin. I am finally beginning to develop an infectious sense of well-being and calm as soon as I step off the plane. London, for all its comfort, convenience and familiarity will always have a place in my heart as my home. Yet, in being surrounded by so many familiar faces and the things I know and love, this recent trip too, became a trip back home.

The dishes I present to you today are as familiar to me as fish and chips, and although I didn’t really learn to cook until my twenties, the shopping, the chopping, the grinding, stewing and frying, was an integral part of being a Ghanaian girl growing up.

Menu:

Spicy beef kebabs – a typical Ghanaian street food often found at parties and in bars;

Fried yam

Fried fish

Served with shito – a spicy hot pepper sauce

Peanut soup with rice balls – a long-time favourite of mine and of PSC

Jollof rice – the main event, you will find several variations of this throughout W Africa and its origins are hotly debated. A firm favourite for any celebration, although frankly, for most of us it‘s far too good to warrant a celebration. ‘People disappoint, jollof is eternal’

Lamb/chicken stew

Plain boiled rice

Fried plantain

Ghana salad

Dessert –

‘Bof-rot’ - Ghanaian doughnuts – not traditionally served as a desert but a party snack, but too good to miss!

Pineapple upside down cake - a PSC signature dish

Cost will be £45 a head of which £35 will go direct to MSF.

Please e-mail us with bookings on info@parkholmesupperclub.co.uk