Click on the image, above to submit to Pinterest.
Grasscutter Soup with Okra
Grasscutter Soup with Okra is a traditional Ghanaian recipe (from Ghana) for a classic stew of grasccutter (cane rat) in a ginger and chilli base with the cane rat's stomach contents and an onion, tomato, garden egg and chilli flavouring and which is finished with finely sliced okra to thicken. The full recipe is presented here and I hope you enjoy this classic Ghanaian Fusion version of: Grasscutter Soup with Okra.
prep time
20 minutes
cook time
130 minutes
Total Time:
150 minutes
Serves:
6–8
Rating: 
Tags : Chilli RecipesSpice RecipesGame RecipesVegetable RecipesGhana Recipes
The cane rat is one of Africa's largest rodents. It is an agricultural pest and is hunted for bush meat. Recently there have been efforts to farm it as mini livestock, particularly in Ghana and Nigeria.
OK, this is a bizarre recipe I know. You need whole cane rats that have not been skinned or gutted. Skin and gut them but preserve the stomachs. Cane rats, eat greens and the pre-digested greens in the stomach provide more minerals than raw greens would.
Ingredients:
2
cane rats (grasscutters), divided into serving portions
3cm length of fresh ginger, grated
2 large shallots, finely chopped
salt, to taste
4 large, ripe tomatoes, whole
2 whole onions
8 garden eggs (egg-shaped green eggplants)
6 whole Scotch bonnet chillies, stems removed
200g button mushrooms, halved
100g okra, finely sliced
Method:
Wash the grasscutter meat and place in a large saucepan with the ginger and shallots. Add a little salt to taste and about 300ml water. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer, cover and set aside to cook.
In the meantime, take the reserved grasscutter stomachs and extract the contents into a bowl. Add about 500ml warm water and stir the ingredients with your hand. Strain this mixture through a fine-meshed strainer and add the green-coloured liquid to the pan with the grasscutter meats. Add in the tomatoes, onions, garden eggs and chillies.
Bring back to a simmer, cover and cook for about 60 minutes or until all the ingredients are tender. Remove the tomatoes, onions, chillies and garden eggs. Pound in a mortar then return the resultant paste to the pot. Add the mushrooms and the thinly-sliced okra, re-cover the pot and cook for 60 minutes more.
Serve hot, accompanied by gari, fufu or any of the usual African soup accompaniments.
