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Ewa Agoyin

Also known as Ewa Agoyin (Mashed Beans with Pepper Sauce)

Ewa Agoyin is one of the most beloved and culturally iconic street foods in Lagos — soft, completely mashed honey beans served with the extraordinary, deeply caramelised Agoyin pepper sauce. The dish was introduced to Lagos by Beninois (from Benin Republic) migrants who set up stalls selling their style of mashed beans with a unique, long-cooked, extremely dark and intensely spiced pepper sauce.

Ewa Agoyin, Nigerian cooking

Ingredients

  • 2 big cups of honey beans (oloyin) or brown beans, soaked overnight
  • 1 big onion, quartered
  • Salt to taste FOR THE AGOYIN PEPPER SAUCE:
  • 6 big ripe tomatoes, blended
  • 3 big Tatashe (red bell peppers), blended
  • 5 to 6 Atarodo (very hot chilli peppers), blended
  • 2 big onions — 1 blended with peppers, 1 finely sliced
  • 5 cooking spoons of vegetable oil
  • 2 big tablespoons of iru (fermented locust beans)
  • 3 seasoning cubes (Knorr), crushed
  • Salt to taste

Method

  1. 01

    Cooking the Beans to Mashed Consistency. Drain the soaked beans. Place in a pot with the quartered onion and enough water to cover generously. Boil for 1 to 1.5 hours until the beans are completely soft — beyond normal soft, they should be falling apart and beginning to mush on their own. Drain excess water, leaving just enough to help mashing. Using a wooden spoon or potato masher, mash the beans completely smooth or to a rough, porridge-like consistency — this is the traditional Ewa Agoyin texture. Season with salt. Keep warm.

  2. 02

    Making the Agoyin Sauce — The Long Cook. Heat 5 cooking spoons of vegetable oil in a wide, heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat. Add the sliced onion and fry for 5 minutes until golden-brown — deeper than usual. Add the iru and fry for 2 minutes. Pour in the blended tomatoes, Tatashe, Atarodo and blended onion. The Agoyin sauce is now cooked for a significantly longer time than regular Nigerian stew — fry vigorously for 35 to 45 minutes, stirring every few minutes. The sauce will become progressively darker, more concentrated and intensely caramelised. Continue until the sauce is very dark, very thick and the oil separates clearly. Add seasoning cubes and salt.

  3. 03

    Final Sauce Check. The authentic Agoyin sauce should be almost black-red in colour, very thick, extremely concentrated in flavour and intensely spiced. It should taste bold, slightly smoky from the caramelisation, and fiercely hot from the Atarodo.

  4. 04

    Serving. Ladle the warm mashed beans into a bowl or onto a plate. Pour the hot Agoyin sauce generously over the beans. The sauce-to-bean ratio is important — Ewa Agoyin should be generously sauced.

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