What it is
Beans cooked until soft then stirred into a palm oil pepper sauce with onions, peppers and often locust beans, so the sauce coats the beans rather than sitting under them. The name means stirred beans.
Key ingredients
- Brown or honey beans
- Palm oil
- Blended peppers and tomatoes
- Onions
- Iru (locust beans)
- Ground crayfish
- Dried fish or ponmo
- Seasoning
A list of what goes in, not a recipe. Quantities and method vary by household.
How it is eaten
Eaten with bread, fried plantain, boiled yam, agidi or rice, often scooped with bread.
Cultural significance
Ewa riro is Yoruba and is one of the most widely sold meals in Lagos, from roadside food sellers to office lunch vendors. It is the everyday counterpart to ewa agoyin: same beans, but stirred into a red sauce rather than served under a dark fried pepper paste. It is treated as filling, cheap and complete.
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