Market Fry-Up · Whole Salted Fish
Kyenam (Fante Fried Fish)
Photo: Adjeiwaa.ella / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0
Vendors sometimes deliberately fry kyenam until it's hard and dry rather than tender, because the extra cooking acts as a form of preservation that lets it keep for days without refrigeration.
Whole fish — often red snapper, mackerel, or croaker — is salted and deep-fried until the skin turns deep golden and crisp, then sold with ground chili pepper, shito, and sliced onion.
Why it's made this way: The Fante and Ga names for fried fish, kyenam and kenam, come from coastal frying traditions built to make the day's catch last, and it remains the classic partner to kenkey up and down Ghana's coast.
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