amala

Our Top 5 Food Made From Cassava

amala

We have established that Cassava is a very flexible staple used for different purposes in Nigerian homes. However, in today’s post, we shall explore some of the common meal uses of the crop in Nigeria. Note that these meals are not exclusive to cultures in Nigeria as many cultures in the world consume the meals the same way but call them by different names. Here are our favorite picks;

1. Cassava Tuber Itself

A cassava tuber variety could be cooked and enjoyed with varieties of stews also, it could be pounded and enjoyed like pounded yam. But not all varieties of cassava can be eaten that way as many are known to be highly toxic when eaten in such form. Pounded cassava can be enjoyed with different local soups like; egusi (melon) Soup, vegetable soup, oha soup, white soup, etc.

Pounded Cassava

2. Garri

This form of cassava food is processed by grinding and squeezing out the starchy content. The residue is left for three days to ferment (Ijebu Garri) thereafter, it is fried into sand-like grains and the quality is determined by the dryness. That is, the drier the better. Other types like the popular Bendel Garri are fried immediately after grinding and squeezing out the water without leaving it to ferment.

Garri

3. Fufu

Fufu is obtained by soaking the tuber in water for between four to five days to get it softened, then manually remove the chaff. The Cassava preparation follows a similar process to garri but instead of frying, it is cooked and pounded into a pulp of various hardness and eaten with Nigerian soups such as the popular Igbo’s Egusi soup.

Fufu

4. Amala

Cassava is processed into amala first by cutting it into pieces, soak it for two or three days, drying and grinding it into flour, the flour is then prepared similar to fufu and enjoyed with the popular Yoruba’s Ewedu soup.

5. Abacha

This is obtained by boiling the cassava tuber, peel off the back, and cut the remaining into tiny pieces. Thereafter, it is soaked in clean water over the night to get the starch out, the slippy deposit is washed off the actual food which is then cooked as a local salad.

Abacha

So tell me, which is your favorite?

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