Kenkey is fermented corn dough, wrapped and steamed, and it is the food of the people whose city Accra originally is. It is sour, dense, cheap and filling, and it divides visitors more sharply than anything else on a Ghanaian plate.
This page is about eating it well, which mostly means understanding the sourness rather than tolerating it.
What it actually is
Maize is milled, mixed to a dough and left to ferment for a few days. Part of that dough is then cooked, mixed back into the raw part, shaped into balls, wrapped, and steamed for hours.
The fermentation is the whole point and the reason it lasts. Before refrigeration, souring maize was how you kept it, and kenkey is that preservation method turned into a national dish. The sharpness you taste is not a flaw in the cooking; it is the cooking.
Ga kenkey and Fante kenkey are different things
They are not regional labels for the same food. Ask for the wrong one and you will get a different meal.
| Ga kenkey | Fante kenkey | |
|---|---|---|
| Wrapped in | Corn husks | Plantain leaves |
| Taste | Sharper, more sour | Milder, slightly sweeter |
| Texture | Denser, firmer | Softer |
| Also called | Komi, or dokono | Dokono, or etew |
Ga kenkey is the Accra one. If you are eating in Accra and nobody specifies, that is almost certainly what you have.
Start with Fante kenkey if the sourness is new to you, and work up. A great many people who decided they dislike kenkey were handed Ga kenkey first.
What goes with it
Kenkey is never eaten alone. The accompaniment is not a side dish — it is half the meal, and the balance between the sour dough and the hot, salty, oily topping is the thing being aimed at.
The standard plate:
- Fried fish. Usually a whole one. Tilapia, red fish, or small fried fish eaten bones and all.
- Shito, the black pepper sauce. Do not skip it. Kenkey without shito is the version people dislike.
- Ground pepper — fresh chilli, onion and tomato ground in an earthenware bowl, which is a different thing from shito and often served alongside it.
- Raw onion, sliced.
Other combinations you will meet: kenkey with fried or grilled tilapia, kenkey with octopus or snails, kenkey with gari and groundnut for a cheap lunch, and the street version — kenkey with shito and one fried fish, wrapped in paper and eaten standing up.
How to eat it
With your right hand. Kenkey is hand food, like fufu and banku. Bowls of water are provided.
Unwrap it, but eat from the wrapping. The husk or leaf is the plate.
Pinch a piece, flatten it slightly, and use it to pick up fish and pepper. You are not dipping so much as assembling a mouthful — a small amount of dough to a generous amount of topping, not the other way round.
Do not rush the first one. The sourness registers first and the rest of the meal arrives a second later.
If you have tried it and hated it
Three things go wrong, in this order: not enough pepper, no fish, and Ga kenkey as a first attempt. Get Fante kenkey, a whole fried tilapia, and more shito than you think you want, and try again.
Where to buy it in Accra
Street sellers, from a basin, usually with fish and shito on the same table. This is the normal way and the cheapest.
Chop bars, where it is a plated meal with a choice of fish.
Markets — sold by the ball, several at a time, for eating at home. Make and Mamprobi, Jamestown, Nima and every neighbourhood market has sellers.
— Accra’s markets — Where to eat and drink
Supermarkets sell it vacuum-packed, which is convenient and not as good.
What it costs
Street kenkey with fish is among the cheapest full meals in Accra, in the same territory as a plate of waakye and well under anything a restaurant serves.
No figure is printed here, because kenkey is priced by the ball and by the fish separately, and both move with the season and with the price of maize. The fish is almost always the larger half of the bill. Ask, and then ask a second seller.
— What living in Accra costs — Inflation and the cedi
Keeping it
Kenkey keeps far better than most cooked starch — the fermentation and the wrapping are both doing work. A few days at room temperature is ordinary, and longer in a fridge.
To reheat, steam it rather than microwaving it. Wrapped, over a little water, until it is hot through. A microwaved ball goes dry at the edges and stays cold in the middle.
Left long enough it sours further, which some people prefer and which is not the same as having gone off.
If you want to sell it
Kenkey is one of the most common small food businesses in Accra, and the economics of a stand are genuinely worth running before committing to one.