Saturday 28 June 2014

BN Cuisine with Uzo’s Food Labs: A Twist on Akara & Akamu

I have a friend who is pescatarian. It’s essentially being a vegetarian that can eat fish. In her case, she only eats some kinds of fish but has a diet that is largely plant based. One sunny afternoon, she called and said she was coming over to visit and was coming with an empty stomach and hung up the phone with these words – “I don’t want salad Uzo”.

I admit I was thrown and was going to throw together a ‘sexy’ salad with a quick healthy dressing on the side and call it a day. With those parting words of hers, that clearly was not going to work. I sat and thought for a while and decided to make beans porridge using coconut milk and mixed vegetables since she loves beans. As I started getting my pots and pans out, it just hit me. Make akara. And akamu. And that’s how this seed was planted.

By the time I was done, I had an akara cheeseburger and an akamu fruit smoothie that was a huge hit.
If you think about it, the concept of the akara burger is not new in its basic form. Hot akara and soft agege bread has been eaten for eons and is still a favorite with a lot of people. There are vegetarian ‘burger’ patties sold around the world that have soybeans as the major ingredient. Burger chains usually have shakes or smoothies on their menu. This is my interpretation of a vegetarian burger and a fruit smoothie using Nigerian staples.

What You Need {Akara Cheeseburger}
3 cups of brown beans – I used ewa oloyin (honey beans).
1 medium red onion
1 tablespoon ground crayfish
¼ teaspoon dried Cameroonian pepper
1 stock cube
1 large egg
Salt to taste
Soft burger bun
Mayonnaise – regular or low fat version
Onion slices
Tomato slices
Cheese slices – Any kind of cheese that you prefer

How To
Pick, wash and skin the beans. Add the beans, roughly chopped onions, crayfish, Cameroonian pepper, and stock cube into a blender.

Add a 1/8 of a cup of water to start. Your mix should be thick so the akara retains its shape when fried. You can always add water to the mix as you go along. Blend ingredients until beans is smooth and pour into a bowl.

Taste the mix to ensure properly seasoned. Adjust to taste. Then add the raw egg. I do this at this point after there is no more tasting of the raw mix to be done (food safety rules). The addition of the egg is unorthodox but it results in very fluffy, light akara that puff up when frying.

In a frying pan, heat some flavorless oil – I use Canola oil which is also a better health option than vegetable oil. Spoon the mix into the oil carefully to be sure there are no oil splats. For uniform akara balls, I use ice cream or cookie scoops. For the ‘burger’ patty, I used a cooking spoon to ensure I had a flat and wide patty to fill the burger bun.

Fry until golden brown and drain on kitchen towels.

Prepare your burger bun by splitting it down the middle. Smear mayonnaise on both sides of the bun and put cheese slice on the base of one side. Add the akara patty while still hot. This will melt the cheese a little bit. Top patty with onion and tomato slices and cover with the other half of the bun. You can secure the burger with a tooth pick so it stays together.

Please warn your guests about the tooth pick – if it is not visible.

What You Need {Akamu Fruit Smoothie}

1 cup prepared and cooled akamu/pap – I used the brown pap made from guinea corn but you can use any kind that you prefer,
Cold fruit mix.- I used the juice of 1 orange, pieces from 1 large mango and slices of pineapple that had been in the freezer for about an hour. I suggest using sweet fruit that have juice which helps to thin out the akamu/pap once blended. You can add pure natural honey if you want this sweeter.