I have been working in Farringdon this week so I popped up to Exmouth Market to sample some food from the street market. I had various choices, including Italian sausages and Breton pancakes, but I was most struck by Spinach & Agushi, the Ghanaian food stall.

It’s obviously quite popular because, as well as having to wait in a short queue, when I got to the front they were sold out of the eponymous spinach and agushi. So I had a vegetarian bean stew with rice instead. The curry was rich and spicy with red kidney beans and chick peas, which had a satisfying chewiness. There was none of that nasty tin flavour you sometimes get with the canned variety.

I liked it so much I came back the next day, determined to get the spinach and agushi dish. They change the menus daily and also offer meat-based dishes such as beef stew or coconut chicken curry but they do the spinach and agushi every day. This time they had freshly cooked plantains that had been deep fried in a wok so I had that instead of rice. I didn’t know what agushi was but the sign said it was made from ground melon seeds. It tasted like a mild, almost sweet paste, and went very well with the spinach and spices.

If I ever see agushi for sale I might buy it simply for the curiosity factor - I have found a few recipes online that use it, such as agushi soup and this stew using kontomire (coconut yam leaves) with spinach listed as a substitution.

Plantains are a close relative of the banana that provides a staple food in much of the developing world, including Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean - you can buy it in the UK in places like Brixton and Kilburn High Road. Plantains, unlike their sweet relative, are starchy and can only be eaten when cooked, but they are highly versatile, making anything from salty chips or crisps to sweet baked or stewed dishes.

On the Spinach & Agushi website I learned that Ghanaian food is made from maize, cassava, plantain and rice based dishes, usually served with soups or stews. Fish is usually smoked and dried and beef, chicken, lamb, guinea fowl and goat are also popular.

Tthe stall is run by Lloyd and Adwoa Mensah-Hagan, who were runners-up in the BBC2 show, The Restaurant with Raymond Blanc. They run the Exmouth Market stall Monday to Friday and a stall at Portobello Road market on Saturdays, but they are looking for suitable restaurant premises. I wish them luck!

1 down, 191 to go.

Spinach & Agushi

Location: Exmouth Market (Monday to Friday) and Portobello Road Market (Saturday)

Web: www.spinachandagushi.co.uk