African Street Vendor

Black-eye pea fritters (Akara) are a common street-vender food in West Africa where they have been a staple for many generations.  Black-eye pea fritters are also a common food in many Caribbean nations, such as Puerto Rico and Cuba, and in the southern United States.  Like many African foods, the pizazz is in the sauce.  The fritter itself has a comforting starchy blandness like rice or bread. In some places, the sauce has a tomato base.  In other places, it’s sweeter with lots of onion, sweet pepper or pumpkin.  Where ever you go, it’s hot!

When I was in Africa, I tried a well-sauced black-eye pea fritter and couldn’t put the fire out in my mouth for hours.  Africans love their hot food! Most would make these with fresh habanero or scotch bonnet peppers.  Habanero peppers are low oxalate, so go for it if you like really spicy foods.  I prefer to give the sauce just enough kick to complement the natural sweetness of the onions and red peppers.  For me, that means about 1/8 -1/4 teaspoon of cayenne for the sauce and an 1/8 teaspoon for the fritters.  Have fun experimenting!

Black-Eye Pea Fritters (Akara)

For the Sauce:

1 cup onions
1 cup red pepper
1/2 cup big beef tomatoes
1/8 – 1/2 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper
Dash of salt
2 T coconut oil or peanut oil

For the Fritters:

1 cup dry black-eye peas (or two cups cooked/canned black-eye peas)
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar or lemon juice (if using dry beans)
1/2 cup minced onion
1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon salt
6-8 tablespoons water
coconut oil or peanut oil for pan frying (these are the traditional oils used)

Step 1:  Set the dry beans and apple cider vinegar in a large bowl with enough water to cover them by a 3-4 inches.  Let the peas soak for 12 -24 hours.  Remove any floating “skins” or debris. Drain the peas and rinse.

Frying Black-Eye Pea Fritters

Step 2:  Make the sauce.  Puree the onions, red pepper, tomato, cayenne, and  salt in a food processor or blender.  Warm the oil over medium heat.  Add the puree and cook, stirring occasionally,  until most of the liquid is evaporated about 10 – 12 minutes. Note: You can dice the veggies really fine and leave this sauce chunky is you prefer.

Step 3.  Put the rinsed black-eye peas, onions and cayenne pepper in a high quality/powerful  food processor or a high quality/powerful blender.  Pulse until you get something similar to a corn meal consistency – it will still be  “grainy'” but shouldn’t have big chunks of bean (My Cuisinart Elite Food Processor handles this easily in less than 30 seconds). If you do not have a powerful blender or food processor, you will probably want to use cooked/canned peas to get a smooth consistency (see note).  Add the salt and 6 tablespoons of water and mix until well-blended.  The batter should drip slowly off a spoon.  If it is too thick — add up to 2 tablespoons more water until the right consistency is achieved.

Note: I highly recommend using the soaked dry beans if you have the equipment because the fritters are much easier to cook and have a more pleasant, bread-like texture.  If you use cooked/canned peas, for your black-eye pea fritters you will definitely want to use eggs or corn meal as a binder (see “what to do if your fritter falls apart” below).  You will  also need to experiment with the water (I needed less).  These fritters still taste great, but they’ll have a creamier consistency that isn’t as bread-like as a fritter made with soaked dry beans.

Step 4.  Africans traditionally deep fry black-eye pea fritters, but I find you can pan fry them in 1/2 – 1 inch oil with good results.  Add about a half inch oil to a heavy skillet or dutch oven over medium to medium-high heat.  Test the oil with drops of batter – it should bubble when ready.  Drop fritters into the oil by tablespoons (get really close to the oil and ease the batter in to keep it from breaking apart).  Fry on each side for about 1.5 to 2 minutes.  Drain the black-eye-pea fritters on paper towels, adding more oil as needed.  After each batch, use a slotted spoon to scoop out any broken up “extras.”  These crispies are not only yummy, but if you let them stay in the oil too long they will burn and make all of your later batches taste burnt.

Serve with hot sauce.

Makes 24 – 36 fritters depending on your interpretation of a tablespoon . . .

Black-Eye Pea Fritters have a similar texture to hush puppies or falafel.

If Your Batter Breaks Apart While Cooking:  Keeping your black-eye pea fritters from falling apart is a learned skill.  Easing them into the oil gently (dropping from a half inch above the oil) helps a lot.  So does chilling the batter.  The real problem for me comes with the flip.  Like a pancake, it will work better if you make the fritters small and somewhat flat (so they set most of the way through before the flip).  I find using both a metal spatula and a spoon helps me ease the fritters over.  If this doesn’t work for you and you don’t care about being authentic, you may add an egg or two to the batter as a binder.  Vegans may add a tablespoon or two of corn meal.

Low Oxalate Info: All ingredients in West African Black-Eye Pea Fritters are low oxalate as long as you choose a low oxalate tomato variety like big beef or pink girl.  A half teaspoon cayenne pepper has 3.0 mg. oxalate, so whether you choose to use 1/8 teaspoon or 1/2 teaspoon won’t affect the oxalate content much.  Coconut oil has 0.2 mg. oxalate per tablespoon, while peanut oil has 0.6 mg. per tablespoon, so your choice here won’t matter much either.  In African, you can smell the ground nut oil cooking whenever you enter a market where street vendors sell black-eye pea fritters.  Home cooks may use coconut oil, however, and it also has a lovely aroma, so both add to the experience.  Black-eye pea fritters have about 1 mg. oxalate per fritter with sauce, based on your recipe making 28 fritters and you dividing the sauce evenly between them (using 1/2 teaspoon cayenne and coconut oil).  Three fritters makes a nice appetizer or side dish, while 5-8 fritters makes a filling vegan main dish.

Menu Idea: For a completely West African meal, try these black-eye pea fritters with West African chicken soup.  Or try a southern soul dinner and serve black-eye pea fritters with  roast chicken, creamed corn and  Southern-Style Low Oxalate Greens.

Left-Overs? You can heat up the left-over fritters in a skillet or toaster oven for a do-over of the original fare.  Or try splitting them in half and using them like bread or crackers.  They taste great with low oxalate hummus and a slice of tomato, and they also make a decent ham and cheese sandwich with a little of the left-over sauce.  For the grain-free folks, these fritters can really fill in some of the gaps left by bread.

Other Diets:  West African Black-Eye Pea Fritters may also be appropriate for gluten-free, GFCF, vegan and vegetarian diets.

Photo credit goes to Ryan Kilpatrick for Sidewalk Vendor.

Kheema (spicy mince)

I love a good curry, which can be problematic on the low oxalate diet.  If you check out the top four ingredients in most commercial curry powders, you will find three are high oxalate (turmeric, cumin, and coriander) and one hasn’t been tested  (fenugreek seeds).  No wonder the only commercially-available curry powder that’s been tested is really  high oxalate (72 mg. oxalate per tablespoon for McCormick’s brand curry powder.  And most curry recipes call for 2 – 3 tablespoons. Yikes!).

If you’ve been missing curry, take heart.  Here’s a run down of traditional curry spices, herbs, flavorings and oils by oxalate content, so you can start experimenting again today!

Curry Spices by Oxalate Content:

High Oxalate                    Medium Oxalate        Low Oxalate                   Very Low Oxalate
Turmeric*                                    Cardemom                             Yellow Mustard                       Garlic
Cumin Seed                                  Nutmeg                                   Raw Ginger                                Lemon Juice
Coriander                                     Lemon Peel                            Fresh Green Chilis                  Lemon extract**
Cinnamon*                                  Paprika                                    Fresh Cilantro                          Cinnamon extract**
Clove*                                            Black Pepper                        Fresh Basil                                 Chrystallized Ginger (ground)
Fennel Seed*                              Cayenne Pepper                  Sage**                                          Curcumin Supplements**
Ground Ginger                           Fresh Jalapeno**               White Pepper                             Coconut milk, oil or flesh
Anise Seed                                   Fresh Serrano**                 Fresh Cayenne                           Tobasco Sauce**

Not Tested: Fenugreek Seed, Curry Leaves, Asafoetida, Tamarind
Serving size for all dried herbs and spices is 1 teaspoon.  Serving sizes for fresh ingredients vary, but are “reasonable” serving sizes such as two tablespoons chopped green chilies, 2 jalapeno peppers, 6 small cayenne peppers, or 1 clove garlic.
*Above 25 mg. oxalate per serving (very high oxalate)
**Not traditional, but can be used to replace some traditional ingredients with yummy results

Poha (fried flattened rice)

Making Low Oxalate Curry:  As you can see, not all is lost!  If you want to make your own low oxalate curry powder or low oxalate curries, you have plenty of medium, low and very low oxalate spices, herbs and flavorings to choose from.  I strongly suggest you don’t use any of the very high oxalate spices (those marked with one asterick), especially turmeric (which is really high oxalate).  Although most people associate curry with turmeric, it has very little taste and is used in curries mainly for the health properties of its most biologically-active component—curcumin.  Curcumin is a strong anti-inflammatory and antioxidant, and may be added to your curries by breaking open a few low oxalate curcumin capsules.  Curcumin supplements will also add the traditional yellow color to your final dish and helps preserve the traditional health benefits of eating curry.  I strongly recommend adding curcumin capsules to your curry, especially since oxalate causes  oxidative stress and inflammation–two conditions helped by curcumin.  Some very painful inflammatory conditions can be improved with curcumin supplementation, plus some very positive results have been seen in the autism community.

Although you probably shouldn’t use the very high oxalate ingredients in your curries, I do make an exception for cumin and occasionally for coriander.  Cumin and coriander are very strong-tasting traditional Indian spices, and a little bit can go a long way.  Try using small amounts of cumin or coriander in your curry (about ¼ to ½ teaspoon); just don’t go crazy with it.  Also, remember spices and dried herbs lose their flavor fast in your cabinet (see Five Tips for Using Herbs and Spices).  Make sure your herbs and spices are as fresh as possible—less than a month old if you can–especially if you are going to use high oxalate spices like cumin in your recipes.  You want as much flavor for the oxalate as possible.

Low Oxalate Curry Powders:If you’re ready to start experimenting with low oxalate curries, you will love the two low oxalate curry powders below.  Karla over at the Trying Low Oxalates Yahoo Group is a fabulous and creative chef  who keeps a database of low oxalate recipes in the group’s applications area (click here for the data base if you are already a member of this fabulous group.  If you are not a member, see Top Ten Reasons to Join the Trying Low Oxalates Yahoo Group and join today!).  Karla has shared many yummy curry recipes in the low oxalate recipe database (20 at last count), most of which include her signature low oxalate curry powder.  This is a mild curry powder that can be used in any recipe that calls for curry powder; just don’t substitute it tablespoon for tablespoon!  To keep things low oxalate, try using one teaspoon of Karla’s low oxalate curry powder for each tablespoon of regular curry powder in your favorite curry recipe (and be sure to significantly reduce or eliminate any other high oxalate curry seasoning!).

Chicken Curry

Karla’s Low Oxalate Curry Powder

1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp cardamom
4 tsp granulated garlic
2 tsp chilli powder
1 tsp ground sage
1 tsp lemon/orange zest
1 tsp ground cumin
3 Enhansa 150 mg capsules
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp white pepper

Combine all of the ingredients and store in an airtight container (open the curcumin capsules and add the powder to your mix). Makes 15 teaspoons.

Note: If you don’t have Enhansa, 1 Jarrow Curcumin 95 capsule can also be used.

Low Oxalate Info: If you check out this recipe in the Trying Low Oxalates recipe database, you’ll notice that Karla always puts the oxalate content of each ingredient in parenthesis next to the ingredient.  I removed these here for editorial reasons, but this is another bonus of using the recipe database in the trying Low Oxalates Yahoo Group.  You always know exactly where your oxalate is coming from!  Karla’s low oxalate curry powder has about 6.7 mg oxalate per teaspoon. If you want to reduce the oxalate content of this fabulous curry powder even further, I suggest you leave out the lemon or orange zest and add a few drops (up to a ½ teaspoon) of pure lemon extract or pure orange extract to your recipe (add it to a liquid ingredient if possible and mix well).  Lemon extract and orange extract are very low oxalate, and leaving the zest out of Karla’s powder reduces the oxalate content to about 5.1 mg. per teaspoon.

Low Oxalate Curry Powder with Mustard:

boiled egg and curried chickpeas

If you enjoy curry with mustard, you’ll love this low oxalate curry powder with ground yellow mustard, especially when combined with cauliflower, chicken or fish.  I didn’t add any ginger, cilantro or basil to my powder because I prefer to add these ingredients fresh (plus, I almost always add more fresh garlic).  I might also occasionally add fresh chilies or hot peppers to a curry if I want more heat, but generally a teaspoon or two of my low oxalate curry powder with mustard provides enough heat for me.  Again, to keep things low oxalate, use 1 teaspoon of low oxalate mustard curry powder for 1 tablespoon of regular curry powder in your favorite recipes and ditch or significantly reduce any other high oxalate seasonings.

Low Oxalate Curry Powder with Mustard
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon cardamom
2 teaspoons ground yellow mustard
1 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon white pepper
3 Enhansa 150 mg. capsules or 1 Jarrow Curcumin 95 capsule
2 teaspoons granulated garlic

Combine all of the ingredients and store in an air-tight container for up to two months (open the curcumin capsules and add them to your mix).  Makes about 11 teaspoons (recipe halves easily if you don’t think you’ll use this powder quickly enough–use two Enhansa capsules or one Jarrow 95 capsule if you halve the recipe).

Low Oxalate Info:  Low Oxalate Mustard Curry Powder has about 4.1 mg. oxalate per teaspoon.

Photo credits go to jules:stone soup for Boiled Eggs with Curried Chickpeas, rovingl for Kheema, Poha and Chicken Curry.