West African · Side
Fufu
- Intermediate
- 40 min
- roughly 1 of 4 for cost
- Vegetarian
- Vegan
A quiet dish that lets its main ingredient speak: season well and stand aside.
Ingredients
- 500g cassava (or plantain + cassava mix; or cassava flour for the fast road)
- Water
- Pinch of salt (controversial; many say none)
- A strong wooden spoon and stronger forearms
- Any soup with 'swallow' status alongside
Equipment
Stand mixer
The skills inside
The words inside
Stand Mixer & AttachmentsCassavaThe Kitchen Torch
Allergen screen
Found: gluten
Screened for: gluten, dairy, egg, nuts, peanuts, fish, shellfish, molluscs, soy, sesame, celery, mustard, lupin, alcohol. Not screened: sulphites.
Screened by keyword from the ingredient list, not reviewed by a person; check every label for what the list cannot show.
Method
- Boil peeled cassava until completely soft.
- Pound (or beat in a stand mixer with paddle, modern kitchen truce) adding splashes of hot water.
- Work until stretchy, smooth and lump-free: it should slump slowly, not hold peaks.
- Shape into smooth mounds with wet hands. Serve with egusi or mafe.
How to tell it is going right
This dish has no standard of its own yet. It is judged on the technique it exercises: checked at the pan, while there is still something to be done about it.
Shaping by hand 85 recipes
- The pieces match: weighed, or judged against each other rather than by dividing the mass by eye, so that no piece is half again the size of its neighbour.
- Surfaces are smooth and unbroken with no cracks, tears, or dry patches, and the seams are sealed and sitting underneath.
- The shape is defined and it holds while the tray waits: it has not slumped, spread, or relaxed back out of its form.
- Nothing is trapped that should not be: no air pocket where filling should be, no filling breaking through the surface, and no excess flour greying the outside.
- They finish together in the heat: no piece done while another is still raw, which is the only test that the first mark was met.
Where it goes wrong The dough was worked past its point or shaped without a rest, so it fought back: the pieces spring out of shape on the tray and bake tight, uneven, and torn along the surface.
At the Table
- The Pour
- Grüner Veltliner
- Also Right
- Vermentino or dry Chenin
- From the Taps
- Saison
- Zero-Proof
- Sparkling water with citrus & herbs
The vegetable whisperers: peppery, high-acid whites that flatter greens, roots, and grains without bullying them.
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