More typically, you’d use it as a dip or a spread on the side of a meal.  It works well with beef, chicken, and even seafood.

But what you won’t see very often is Shito used as an ingredient.  But, after all, it’s thick, spicy, and fish flavored – making it the perfect nontraditional substitute for hot sauce, tabasco sauce, salsa, even ketchup.

With that in mind, I’ve begun posting some new recipes on Bakespace.com, just to give you some ideas.

You can add it to the mix for something as simple as Plantain Balls

Or something a bit more elaborate, like broiling tilapia that’s been marinated in Shito.

As I keep coming up with new ideas for Shito recipes, I’ll post them in detail on my favorite recipe sharing site, Bakespace.com.  And if you have new ideas or suggestions, definitely post them here on the blog or send them to me on either Facebook or Twitter.

So, as a part of our new word-of-mouth campaign, we’re offering to co-host a Shito-themed dinner party at your home. If you open your dining room to us and at least 10 friends, we’ll bring a number of wonderfully authentic Ghanaian/African dishes as well as, of course, a party-size amount of Efia Shito.

Contact us either here on the blog, on our Facebook page, at @efiashito on Twitter, or on our main website, and we’ll help you have the best, most original dinner party ever.

See you for dinner!

We’d all come over to Efia’s house with a dish.  We’d have a nice, hearty meal.  We’d kick back with some Jason Statham movies over some freshly popped corn.  And we’d top the night off with some homemade ice cream for dessert.

Nice plan.  Until everyone else, for all sorts of reasons, had to bail out.

Until, at the end, all we were left with were Efia and her rice and me with my bottle of wine.

Not exactly the meal we had in mind, but, as she typically does, Efia found a way to make a bit more of something out of very very little.  She started to thaw some meat from her freezer, and, because she could see how hungry the non-cooking Wine Guy was, she offered me a plate of rice with some freshly made Shito.

Mind you, I’d only had Shito for the first time in my life a few weeks before when she had out-of-town guests.  But I already knew I was in for a treat.

It’s a thick, spicy, deep burgundy sauce with the taste of herring & shrimp mixed in with onions, tomatoes, garlic, ginger….

It was the first time she’d made a batch in a very long time, and since she’d been left high & dry by our movie night dinner dropouts as well, she and I both decided to partake in the shito & rice while we let the meat thaw.

And, boy, it was good.  Really good.  Like, “wanna-lick-the-bowl” good.

So we both helped ourselves to another plate of Shito and white rice.  Oh, and the wine.

And that was it for pretty much the rest of the night.

We kept going back for 3rd & 4th helpings.

And the meat went back into the freezer.

Sadly, we didn’t even miss the ice cream.