Preparing Beans aka “Students Companion”

This is a bowl of beans. When I watch movies, I realize people call it cowpeas. In Ghana, it’s simply known as beans. I prepared some and I want to share with you.

First you start off by washing your beans. What I cooked was 2 cups of beans. I washed it twice because there were a lot of impurities in it. Some were beanstalks others were husks.

After washing, I put the beans in a pot and placed it on fire. I added 3 cups of water to it. It usually takes a while to soften up and once it’s soft, it’s ready.

After about an hour, it was ready. I added about a tablespoon of salt. Living with my grandma, she always told me if you add the salt from the beginning, it takes a longer time for the beans to get soft. I’ve tried it that way a couple of times and I saw no difference but she used to notice that I put the salt inside from the beginning when she was around. After adding the salt, it’s ready to serve.

We normally use palm oil or red oil to eat beans but since I didn’t have any, I used normal cooking oil. Served some beans into a bowl and I added 2 tablespoons of oil.

I added 7 tablespoons of gari. Beans is often eaten with gari(grated cassava). Food is ready now.

This dish is called students companion because it’s a favorite dish of students. It has the same price as rice, but it can sustain the average person much longer than rice. Students like eating beans as breakfast so it can take them through the day.