Potatoes · Recipe · Ghana · Reference page
Fufu with light soup
fufu ne nkrakra (fufu and light soup)
A smooth, stretchy dough of cassava and green plantain served with Ghana's light soup, a thin, peppery tomato broth of goat with ginger, garlic and garden egg. The soup is from Time Out Accra; the fufu is Lola Osinkolu's blender method, a modern alternative to pounding in a mortar.
- Servings
- 4
- Preparation
- 25 min
- Cooking
- 1 h 30
- Total
- 1 h 55
- Difficulty
- Moderate
Equipment
- Blender
- Large saucepan for the soup
- Heavy saucepan and a sturdy wooden spoon for the fufu
- Cling film
Ingredients
Light soup
Fufu
Method
For the soup, wash the ginger, garlic, chilli, one onion and three tomatoes, and blend them with a little salt to a paste. Rub it over the meat and leave for 10 minutes.
Timer · 10 min10:00Put the meat and paste in the pan and cook gently for 10 minutes. Add the tomato purée and cook for 10 minutes more.
Timer · 20 min20:00Add the 500 ml water and simmer until the meat is tender.
Why Goat varies a great deal; the source gives no time. Allow 30 minutes for young goat or chicken and up to 1½ hours for older goat (our estimate).
Timer · 30 min30:00Add the other three tomatoes, diced, the aubergine and the second onion, chopped, and cook for 30 minutes.
Timer · 30 min30:00Lift out the onion, tomatoes and aubergine, blend them smooth and return them to the soup. Bring back to a simmer and season with salt. The soup should be light and thin, not thick.
For the fufu, peel the cassava, cut it in half lengthways, remove the woody core and dice it. Peel and dice the plantain.
Why The core is fibrous and will not blend smooth.
Blend the cassava and plantain with the water to a completely smooth batter.
Pour the batter into the heavy pan over a medium heat and stir constantly until it forms a thick, smooth dough. Add a splash of water, cover and cook for 5 minutes on a low to medium heat, then keep stirring and cooking until the dough turns from white to a pale cream colour and is soft and smooth throughout.
Why Cassava must be fully cooked: the colour change and a smooth, stretchy texture show that the starch is cooked through.
Timer · 15 min15:00Divide the fufu into balls, wrapping each in cling film to keep it warm and soft. Serve each ball in a bowl with the hot light soup poured around it.
To drink & serve with
Time Out serves light soup with fufu, banku or rice.
Substitutions
- Goat → Half a chicken, jointed, as Time Out allows.
- Blender fufu → The traditional way: boil cassava and plantain separately until soft, then pound them in a mortar until smooth and elastic.
- Fufu → Banku or rice, which Time Out also suggests with light soup.
Common mistakes
- Undercooking the fufu: it stays chalky white and raw-tasting.
- Stopping stirring: the dough catches and goes lumpy.
- Making the soup thick: light soup is meant to be thin.
Storage & reheating
Eat fufu fresh. Refrigerate leftover soup within 2 hours, eat within 2 days and bring it back to the boil.
Safety
Cassava contains natural cyanogenic glycosides. Use sweet cassava sold for cooking, peel it, remove the core and cook it through; never eat it raw (FSANZ). Food-standards bodies note that cooking alone is not reliable for bitter, high-cyanide varieties. No declarable allergens; meat must be cooked until tender and steaming hot.
Allergens
None
Check labels: stock, bacon and sauces can contain further allergens.
Dietary
gluten-free · dairy-free
Ghana's soup and swallow
In Ghana, fufu is a "swallow": a soft dough of boiled starchy roots, pinched off by hand and eaten with soup. Time Out Accra calls goat light soup "a Ghanaian classic": a thin tomato broth built on a blended paste of ginger, garlic, hot pepper, onion and tomato, in which the goat (or chicken) simmers until tender with garden egg, the small African aubergine. The vegetables are then blended and returned, so the soup is smooth but stays light. Time Out serves it with fufu, banku or rice.
The blender instead of the mortar
Fufu is traditionally pounded in a wooden mortar from boiled cassava and plantain, hard and rhythmic work. Lola Osinkolu, of Chef Lola's Kitchen, gives a modern home method: raw cassava and green plantain are blended with a little water into a smooth batter and then cooked in a pan, stirred constantly, until it becomes a smooth, stretchy dough and turns from white to a pale cream colour.
Cooking matters here. Food Standards Australia New Zealand warns that cassava contains cyanogenic glycosides, which can release hydrogen cyanide, and that cassava must be peeled and fully cooked before eating. Use the sweet cassava sold for cooking, not bitter varieties.
How it connects
Place
- origin Ghana In preparation
Recipe
- related Asaro (yam pottage)
