Abacha is an Eastern Nigerian dish made from dried shredded cassava. Ever been to the east and wondered at the sight of women carrying a basin on their heads? 80% of the times, It is Abacha that is in that basin.Abacha could be taken as a snack or a real meal.Find below the recipe for Abacha.
Ingredients:
600g Abacha
2 cups of ugba
1 cup of palm oil
Fish, spiced and cooked
2 tablespoons of Powdered Potash
1 large Onion, chopped
Salt and dry pepper (to taste)
4 tablespoons ground crayfish
2 stock cubes (Maggi/Knorr)
1 teaspoon ground Ehu seeds (Calabash Nutmeg)
Boiling water
Before you make Your African Salad
Prepare the ehu seeds by roasting, peeling and grinding them with a dry mill.
If you will use kanda (cow skin), cook, till done and cut into small pieces.
Depending on your choice of fish (you can also use all of them), fry or roast the mackerel, soak the stockfish in water and debone the dry fish.
Wash and cut the vegetables into tiny pieces. Cut the big bulb of onion into tiny pieces and cut the medium one in circles. Wash the garden eggs and set aside, no need to cut these.
Grind the crayfish and pepper
Soak the Abacha in cold water and rinse the Ugba with lukewarm water.
Once the Abacha has softened, put in a sieve to drain.
Put the powdered potash in a cup or bowl and pour about 1 cup of cold water. Stir well and you are ready to start making the African Salad.
Making the African Salad
The key to making a good African Salad is to make sure that all the ingredients are well incorporated. As you will see below, there’s a lot of add this, stir, add that, stir. You may wonder why you can’t just add everything and stir but if you do that, it will be very difficult for you to get a good blend of all the ingredients.
Pour the palm oil into a sizeable pot. Yes, you need all that oil so that your Abacha will not have a dry feel in the mouth when done. Pour the water from the potash mixture, making sure not to pour the sediments.
Stir very well and you’ll see the oil turn into a yellow paste.
Add the ground pepper, ground ehu, crushed stock cubes, crayfish, diced onions, and ugba (ukpaka), then stir very well. Please note that we are doing everything off the stove.
Add the iru/ogiri and make sure it is mixed very well. Add the diced kanda/pomo and stir very well.
Now add the soaked and drained Abacha and stir till it is well incorporated in the palm oil paste.
Add the sliced Utazi and salt to taste and stir well. You can also use dry Utazi if the fresh one is not available where you live. It is important that you add salt last because after adding all that seasoning, your Abacha may not even need salt anymore.
I like my Abacha warm. If you like yours that way too, transfer to a stove at this point and heat it up to your desired temperature at medium heat. When done, turn off the heat and add the sliced garden egg leaves, stir very well and serve.
If you like your Abacha cold, after step 6, add the sliced garden egg leaves, stir and serve with garden eggs, fish and onions.
