Ghanaian Salads

The fruit salads are made of exotic fruits and plants, such as: bananas, avocados, grapefruits, mangos, papayas, coconut and plantains. The papaya and the coconut are also used for its juices, which are added to the salads, among with lemon juice, which is very popular and used for almost any meal. The vegetables which are ingredients in the Ghanan salads are: cassava (the roots are eaten), eggplant (there is also a hot eggplant salad), maize, okkra, locally called ngumbo, Chile pepper, sweet potatoes, onions, tomatoes, turnip, yam (it has edible tubers). The salads are combined with palm or olive oil and sometimes include fish, shrimp or chicken. There are some famous dressings in Ghana, too. The peanut dressing is sweetened with cinnamon, spiced with chili powder and salt and served with fresh chives for garnish. This is added mostly on ripe and firm chopped avocados, but also on other kinds of salads.