Shito or shitor din (lit. 'black pepper') is a hot black pepper

sauce In cooking, a sauce is a liquid, cream, or semi- solid food, served on or used in preparing other foods. Most sauces are not normally consumed by themselves; they add flavour, texture, and visual appeal to a dish. ''Sauce'' is a French wor ...

ubiquitous in

Ghanaian cuisine Ghanaian cuisine refers to the meals of the Ghanaian people. The main dishes of Ghana are centered around starchy staple foods, accompanied by either a sauce or soup as well as a source of protein. The primary ingredients for the vast maj ...

. The name comes from the Ga language. Shito sauce consists primarily of

fish A fish (: fish or fishes) is an aquatic animal, aquatic, Anamniotes, anamniotic, gill-bearing vertebrate animal with swimming fish fin, fins and craniate, a hard skull, but lacking limb (anatomy), limbs with digit (anatomy), digits. Fish can ...

vegetable oil Vegetable oils, or vegetable fats, are oils extracted from seeds or from other parts of edible plants. Like animal fats, vegetable fats are ''mixtures'' of triglycerides. Soybean oil, grape seed oil, and cocoa butter are examples of seed ...

ginger Ginger (''Zingiber officinale'') is a flowering plant whose rhizome, ginger root or ginger, is widely used as a spice and a folk medicine. It is an herbaceous perennial that grows annual pseudostems (false stems made of the rolled bases of l ...

dried fish Fresh fish rapidly deteriorates unless some way can be found to preserve it. Drying (food), Drying is a method of food preservation that works by removing water from the food, which inhibits the growth of microorganisms. Open air drying using sun ...

prawns Prawn is a common name for small aquatic crustaceans with an exoskeleton and ten legs (members of the order of decapods), some of which are edible. The term ''prawn''Mortenson, Philip B (2010''This is not a weasel: a close look at nature's most ...

crustacean Crustaceans (from Latin meaning: "those with shells" or "crusted ones") are invertebrate animals that constitute one group of arthropods that are traditionally a part of the subphylum Crustacea (), a large, diverse group of mainly aquatic arthrop ...

garlic Garlic (''Allium sativum'') is a species of bulbous flowering plants in the genus '' Allium''. Its close relatives include the onion, shallot, leek, chives, Welsh onion, and Chinese onion. Garlic is native to central and south Asia, str ...

peppers Pepper(s) may refer to: Food and spice * Piperaceae or the pepper family, a large family of flowering plants ** Black pepper ** Long pepper ** Kampot pepper * ''Capsicum'' or pepper, a genus of flowering plants in the nightshade family Solanaceae ...

and spices. These ingredients are usually blended and cooked in vegetable or corn oil for a little over an hour to create the sauce. The blend of spices and fish differs between different regions and villages but owes its original recipe to the Ga tribe. In Ghana, shito is used with a variety of dishes. These include

kenkey Kenkey (also known as kɔmi, otim, kooboo or dorkunu) is a staple swallow food similar to sourdough dumplings from the Ga and Fante-inhabited regions of West Africa, usually served with pepper crudaiola and fried fish, soup or stew. Des ...

steamed rice Cooked rice refers to rice that has been cooked either by steaming or boiling. The terms steamed rice or boiled rice are also commonly used. Any variant of Asian rice (both indica and japonica varieties), African rice or wild rice, glutino ...

garri In West Africa, ''garri'' (also known as ''gari'', ''galli'', or ''gali'') is the flour of the fresh starchy cassava root. In the Hausa language, ''garri'' can also refer to the flour of guinea corn, maize, rice, yam, plantain and mille ...

and ''

waakye Waakye ( ) or Awaakye is a Ghanaian dish of cooked rice and beans, commonly eaten for breakfast or lunch. However, others eat it for supper. The rice and beans, usually black eyed peas or cow beans, are cooked together, along with red dried sorg ...

'' (rice and beans) and banku. Indeed, its uses have been adapted to that of a local

ketchup Ketchup or catsup is a table condiment with a sweet and sour flavor. "Ketchup" now typically refers to tomato ketchup, although early recipes for different varieties contained mushrooms, oysters, mussels, egg whites, grapes, or walnuts, amon ...

hot sauce Hot sauce is a type of condiment, seasoning, or salsa (sauce), salsa made from chili peppers and other ingredients. Many commercial varieties of Mass production, mass-produced hot sauce exist. History Humans have used chili peppers and other ho ...

chili oil Chili oil is a condiment made from vegetable oil that has been infused with chili peppers. Different types of oil and hot peppers are used, and other components may also be included. It is commonly used in Chinese cuisine, Mexico, Italy, and el ...

. It is not uncommon to find shito being eaten with

white bread White bread typically refers to breads made from wheat flour from which the bran and the germ layers have been removed from the whole wheatberry as part of the flour grinding or milling process, producing a light-colored flour. Nutrition Wh ...

spring rolls Spring rolls are rolled appetizers or dim sum commonly found in Chinese, Vietnamese and Southeast Asian cuisines. The kind of wrapper, fillings, and cooking technique used, as well as the name, vary considerably depending on the region's ...

. In most Chinese restaurants across Ghana, shito replaces

layou Layou is a small town located on the island of Saint Vincent, in Saint Andrew Parish. It has two quarries, a post office, a police station and a library. History Layou is located on the western coast of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and wa ...

as a condiment to fried rice/steamed rice.

Ground shito

Shito is not always hot black pepper and it can also be prepared without the use of oil. The ingredients for this type of shito are fresh pepper, onions, tomatoes and a little salt mashed together in an earthenware bowl popularly known as '

asanka The Asanka, earthenware dish, is a Ghanaian grinding bowl that is made out of clay with ridges inside. It is one of two kitchen tools commonly used in Ghanaian homes. it comes with a wooden pestle masher called eta or tapoli in the local language ...

' and a pestle shaped like an hour glass. The colour of the resulting sauce is red (shitor tsulu) or green (kpakpo shito) depending on the colour of the pepper used. It can be eaten with banku, akple, gari,

and

References

{{Hot sauces Chili sauce and paste Ghanaian cuisine

Ground shito

See also

References