Red Sauce from Benin

This is a traditional Beninese recipe for a classic sauce(or stew) of onions, garlic and tomatoes flavored with a bouillon cube and hot chilli peppers, which is typically served with rice. I have made a few changes to make it vegetarian. I use this to cook my sesame balls in, served over coconut rice for a nice authentic Beninese meal. Adapted from Celtnet. The original recipe uses Scotch bonnet peppers, yikes! Too hot for me.

• Ready In: 45 mins
• Yields: 7 cups, about

Ingredients

• 4  tablespoons  oil (vegetable or peanut-I use olive)
• 2  large onions, chopped
• 3  garlic cloves, minced
• 12  ripe tomatoes, crushed (or 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes)
• 3  hot chili peppers, chopped (I use jalapenos or Anaheim peppers for less heat)
• 3 1⁄8 cups water (or vegetable stock)
• 1  vegetable bouillon cube (leave out if using vegetable stock)
•  black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the onions and fry for a minute then add the tomatoes, garlic and chillies. Fry for 5 minutes then pour over water and add the vegetable boullion cube(or use veg. stock). Cover and allow to boil for about 20 minutes until all the ingredients have blended together and the tomatoes have broken down. Season with black pepper and serve.
2. In addition to the basic sauce given above you can also add 3 more Scotch Bonnet chillies to make it hotter. You can also add 500g cubed meat or 4 whole fish cut into steaks.