Wait “Sawa Sawa” with Fufu

Wait Sawa Sawa with Fufu

Hello NCC readers! Hope your weekend is going alright so far and enjoying the 25 degrees weather in London today. As Saturday is fufu day, I cooked Sawa Sawa to go with it. “Sawa Sawa” is a leafy vegetable that has a sour taste hence the name. The leaf is plucked from the stem and steamed before cooking it into a sauce. It can be prepared with or without palm oil, blended onions, scotch peppers, ogiri (fermented sesame seed paste) assorted meat of your choice, smoked fish, and “egusi” seeds (melon seeds). The egusi seed helps thicken the sauce. As well as fufu, Sawa Sawa can be eaten with rice mostly with the palm oil version. Fufu however, can be eaten with both versions with or without palm oil.

Fufu is made from cassava and is one of my favourite African dishes. It is made from fermented cassava that is later on cooked and molded into a dough-like consistency ball.

Hope you get to try this dish. Aprons on!

Some cooking Ingredients (palm oil was not used)

Ingredients

1.            1 packet of already steamed Sawa Sawa

2.            1 packet of Egusi seeds (Melon Seeds)

3.            1 packet of Fufu

4.            3 medium sized onions

5.            6 scotch peppers or enough to your tolerance

6.            2  packs of ogiri

7.            Assorted meat (kanda which is the of a cow skin, cow foot, oxtail, broiler chicken)

8.            Smoked fish

9.            Maggie season

10.        Salt

      Cooking Instructions (Serving for 4)

Pot with blended ogiri paste and meat

Sawa Sawa

        1.            Chop already steamed sawa sawa but not too fine.

        2.            Wash thoroughly to remove as much sour taste from the leaf as possible then put aside.

        3.            Bring your meats to boil for about an hour or as soft as you want it to be.

        4.            Meanwhile blend onions and scotch pepper with ogiri. This should look like a thick smooth paste. 
5.      Add the above mixture to the boiled meat and add 2 pints of water then leave the pot to boil for 30 minutes or until you have a thick soup consistency.

6.            Whilst the pot is boiling, put eugusi seeds in a hot pan and roast them slightly

7.            Blend the roasted seeds with one cup of water and add the mixture to the pot and let it boil for a further 20 minutes.

8.            Add Maggie season and salt to taste then add the sawa sawa about 10 minutes. Leave the pot open whilst it boils and until the stew is cooked.

9.            Finally add smoked fish and turn the heat low and let the pot cook for a further 5 minutes and the sauce is ready for serving.

Sieving fufu paste

Foo Foo

1.              Add water to fufu paste and mix with hand into a thick runny consistency.

2.              Sieve the fufu to remove chaff.

3.              Leave this to settle for about an hour or a day before if time permits

4.              Strain off the surplus water and bring fufu to cook on a low heat.

5.              Keep mixing the fufu until it thickens into a hard dough

6.              Add about a handful of water to the pot. Cover and leave the dough to cook by steam.

Wait Sawa Sawa with Fufu

Voila! Dish is done!