African breadfruit porridge, Ukwa porridge
African breadfruit porridge, Ukwa porridge has a delicate but muted sweetness, a flavour peculiar to it. It tastes so good, it can be eaten just boiled without the addition of any other ingredient even salt.
Ingredients
- 5 cups Ukwa (breadfruit)
- 1 tablespoon akanwu (potash)
- 1 tablespoon palm oil
- salt
- scotch bonnet (fresh pepper optional)
- 8-10 leaves scent leaf
Instructions
- In a small bowl, place akanwu, add 1/4 cup water, stir well and set aside to allow any sand in it to settle at the bottom of the bowl.
- Pick out dirt from ukwa, place it in a bowl of water and wash.
- Wash by gently rubbing handfuls of ukwa between your palms in the bowl of water and ensuring the seeds do not break up. Scoop ukwa out of the water, discard dirty water. Do this several times to ensure there is no sand in it.
- Put ukwa in a pot add enough water to reach about 3 inches above, place over medium-high heat. Boil until the water turns milky.
- Swirl akanwu gently and add 3-4 tablespoons of the akanwu liquid, the cooking liquid will immediately turn pale yellow. (You might need to add more as you cook)
- Cover and continue cooking. Cook until the ukwa is soft.
- Place a sieve over a bowl and pour ukwa and cooking liquid into the sieve.
- Place the ukwa back into the pot and set the cooking liquid aside.
- Add to the pot about 1/4 cup of the ukwa water, palm oil, salt, pepper and scent leaf.
- Stir well, cover and lower heat to medium.
- Cook until your ukwa is almost dry. It will absorb the little water remaining, that way it won't end up dry.
- Add sweet corn, stir and take off the heat.
- Serve with the cooking liquid or use this liquid to prepare Ukwa soup.
Notes
- When washing ukwa, the water will be cloudy, don't worry that the nutrients are leaching out, there is plenty where that came from.
- If after about 45 minutes your ukwa is not soft, add more akanwu/ngu liquid.
- If ukwa is soft but the grains are standing alone like well-cooked rice, add a little more akanwu/ngu water.
- Don't mash the ukwa seeds to make it look like porridge. If you need to do that, it means you didn't add enough akanwu/ngu or you bought the bad type of ukwa.
- You will end up with a mash of ukwa mixed with hard seeds, very unpalatable.
