Do not be intimidated by steps, all we are doing is frying all our wet ingredients to remove any moisture, blending it all together and adding it to a pot to simmer with the rest of the dry ingredients to simmer. This is an extremely necessary, popular, flavourful and versatile Ghanaian condiment which is essentially a chili oil. Make Dried Fish
Rinse your fish or filets and pat dry with paper towels
Cut your fish into thirds or quarters after cleaning your fish (if necessary).
Soak in salt water for about 3 hours.
Remove from salt water, pat dry and place on greased baking sheet or wire rack if you have one.
Lay your cut fish on your oven pan or rack and set your oven to 170 degrees Fahrenheit. If your oven cannot go that low, choose the absolute lowest temperature for your oven and leave the oven door cracked open.
Dry for several hours, may take up to 6 hours to fully dry. Allow to fully cool and set aside. You can leave the fish skin on. Do not worry if you don’t get all the bones, this will be blended into a paste later.
Make Dried Shrimp
Rinse your shrimp and remove the shells, you make keep tails on.If using cooked shrimp, it will most likely be peeled already.
Lay your shrimp on a parchment lined baking sheet and set your oven to 170 degrees Fahrenheit and leave the oven door cracked open.
Dry for several hours, may take up to 3 hours to fully dry. flipping every hour.
Allow to fully cool and set aside. Your shrimp should be very hard and crunchy.
Place dried shrimp in blender and blend into a powder.
Set aside. You should about 115 grams of dried shrimp.
Prep Your Shito Ingredients
In a very large pot add your quart of oil.
Blend Aromatics: Blend your onion, garlic, ginger, scotch bonnet together until very smooth. You can add oil into your blender to help you blend all these ingredients together but remember, you are adding oil just to assist you with blending, you still want the general blended mixture ot be thick.
Deep Fry Shrimp: In a pot with oil, deep fry 1 bag of peeled raw shrimp until it is dark brown and overcooked. make sure to watch so it does not burn but you want your shrimp to turn brown which may take sometime.
Blend Fried Shrimp + Dried Mackerel Together: Blend your fried shrimp and dried mackerel together, adding oil to the blender to help you get a thick paste. Try and get the paste as smooth and you can but it may not be perfectly smooth.
Add all ingredients to your pot
Add your tomato to a pot of oil. Use the same oil you deep fried your shrimp in. Fry tomato paste until it is fully mixed into oil, stirring constantly.
Add your onion, ginger, garlic and scotch bonnet blended mixture to the oil. Stir periodically until it is all combined. Simmer on low stirring every 10 minutes for about and hour and a half until the mixture drakers and reduces in volume.
Add your mackerel + fried shrimp pasted. Stir to combine.
Add your shrimp powder. Stir to combine.
Simmer for an additional hour stirring every 10 minutes so it does not burn. Your mixture will turn very dark after an hour or simmering.
Add all your seasoning after the hour. Bouillon cube, hot chili powder, paprika, rosemary, anise and allspice. Note: you can just add salt instead of bouillon cube if you do not want to use those.
Taste and adjust seasoning if necessary.
At this point your shito should be very dark in colour with lots of oil on top, and well seasoned. If your shito is very light in color, cook on low stirring often until it is a deep dark brown almost black in color. Make sure you keep stirring so it does not burn but cooks slowly.
Once your shito is done, allow it to cool completely and store in a glass jar. There should be alot of oil in your shito and this is to preserve the shito. Top each jar with a good amount of oil. Let the shito cool before closing the jar.
Once you open the jar and use any of the shito, store in fridge.
Remember to always use a clean dry uncontaminated spoon when using your shito.
