After making Ofe Okazi, which rocked something awful, I wanted to try this, and I thought hmmmmmn, the Ndigbo’s will have my head for this. Amala with Ofe Okazi, I can almost hear them say Taaaa!!! I will say, why the hell not. A fusion of cultures and the best part is that it works. Afterall, amala is sometimes served with Egusi.
This plantain amala is even more special because it introduces a type of sweetness to the dish that rhymes well with the earthy taste of the achi. Why I was even more excited to try this was because, I kept getting requests and questions, if the hand mixer method will work with making semovita, ground rice and other Nigerian starchy solids made differently from the hot water and flour amala method. I love me a challenge. My brain imagines the possibilities and i think sure, I will give it a try. Give it a try I did, using Remmy Tee’s frozen green plantain amala. Loved it, loved it. I finished the last of the Ofe Okazi yesterday, eating with one hand, working on the computer with another, fearing for my poor Mac that I will spill something over it and cry to high heavens because I have plans to sell it.
You try this out for yourself and see. That wooden spoon of ours is going to be having some major hand mixer envy very soon. I took it even further and made the dreaded Starch eating across the Niger Delta. The urhobo’s call it Usi. Click HERE to see how. If you would like to see how to use your hand mixer to make traditional amala with the Elubo flour, oh yes, you can, click HERE. Lets Cook
You will need
2 Frozen Green Plantains
Small quantity of water to blend
Hand mixer - with the whisk rods attached
How To
1. Take the plantains out of the freezer and leave to sit on your kitchen worktop for 30minutes, which will make it easy to peel off the skin. I tried to get the skin off straight from the freezer and had a battle on my hands. It will be best to chop the plantain in small pieces before blending.
2. Blend to a smooth puree
3. Pour into a saucepan
4. Where you would have normally gotten out the wooden spoon, get out the hand mixer and attach the whisk rods. You are about to watch technology in motion. #2014NigerianCooking
5. Set the engine in motion and whisk. I started at number 1 and cranked it up to number 3 about a minute after.
because the whisking motion is faster than what turning with a wooden spoon will achieve, it makes the plantain amala much quicker. Trust me, I timed this one too. I achieved the result below in way less time, than i would have using my hands.
6. As the mixture, thickens as a result of heat, the amala wraps itself around the whisk rods, in a rapid circular motion, making it very stretchy and fluffy. Amala fele fele (light and fluff) as my Yoruba people say.
7. ……………..and you are done. Timer off, 4 mins 54 seconds. If I didn’t have to stop to be taking pictures, I would have finished in less time. To show you how stretchy this amala is, i lifted up the whisk rods and took a picture. Look below to see that the plantain amala in the pot is still connected to the bit around the whisk rods. Yup, it is that stretchy.
8. As for cleaning, it isn’t that much extra work, compared with cleaning a wooden spoon.
see, it falls of cleanly. Experiment over. You can make this with semovita, ground rice, oatmeal, wheat flour, the next experiment is with……………… stay tuned.
Amala is not the easiest or prettiest of things to plate, so I used a ring food mould which I was conned into ordering. The picture on Lakeland’s (yes that store has gotten me hooked) site looked like a standard sized mould, I was too busy smiling at the 99p price to check the dimensions. When it arrived, I thought what the heck, what am I going to do with this puny thing. It just so happens that on the same Sunday I planned to return it, I thought to mould the plantain amala inside it to see. I am a very proud somebody looking at these images. Not only did I make this amala using a modern kitchen tool, I also got to plate that same amala in the non traditional way.
Win-Win for #2014NigerianCooking
Plantain Amala rings stuffed with Ofe Okazi and topped with mgbam (flat egusi balls)
the recipe for Ofe Okazi is on Bella naija. Don’t have the time to post it here, but come back next week, I will have even more pictures of the step by step details.
Still not convinced about amala and okazi soup, you try it out and see.
Akpuruku mgbam, sitting atop plantain amala
#fusion of cultures. Yoruba meets Igbo
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