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Lagos Roadside · Mashed Bean Stall

Ewa Agoyin (Mashed Beans with Pepper Sauce)

Ewa Agoyin (Mashed Beans with Pepper Sauce) — street food from Lagos, Nigeria
Photo: Atimukoh / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 4.0

The signature sauce gets its dark color from deliberately scorching dried peppers and onions in palm oil almost to the point of burning — that char is the whole point, not a mistake.

Ewa agoyin is soft honey beans boiled until they fall apart, mashed, and topped with a blackened pepper-and-onion sauce fried dark in palm oil. Roadside 'agoyin' stalls scoop it into bowls or onto sliced bread, often with fried plantain on the side.

Why it's made this way: It grew into one of Lagos's cheapest, most filling working-class meals, sold from roadside pots in neighborhoods like Agege where it remains a daily lunch staple.
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Part of World of Street Food — 3248 dishes from 118 countries. Something wrong here? Tell us in the comments below. Photo credits.