I was planning on eating this breadfruit porridge with a nice bowl of the breadfruit liquid at least for a change and thanks goodness that it worked out.
Breadfruit, botanically known as Treculia africana is an edible food belonging to the tree specie of the Treculia genus. The fruits are fibrous and hard in nature, which are usually broken into smaller pieces with tools to extract the seeds from the fruit.
My sweet mum taught me this recipe as a kid and my special thanks to her for putting me on this winning track! Africana breadfruit porridge (ukwa) is among my mum's favourite dishes although I tweaked the recipe a little bit by excluding bitter leaves and corn.
How to Cook breadfruit!
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The breadfruit porridge looks so colourful and delicious, but I knew it was missing out two important things; washed bitter leaves and sweetcorn! Although the original recipe calls for these important ingredients, but it is also interesting to know that you can tweak the recipe and cook it without those ingredients and the finished product will still come out perfectly well. However, in the absence of bitter leaves or scent leaves (nchuanwu), I used the basil leaves and the aroma and flavour from this leaves was just so heavenly.
A sprinkle of powdered potash into the africana breadfruit (ukwa), while cooking tenderised it so easily and quicker. It doesn't get much faster than using a potash or a pressure cooker to get this mouth-watering dish ready. Eating this colourful and delicious combination of africana breadfruit with the flavors made me feel so good. This is a dish that I won't forget to prepare over and over again and eating it with the whitish liquid decanted from the cooked ukwa is just a perfect combination.
Botanically known as Treculia africana or ukwa by the Igbo part of Nigeria, this dish is such that is packed with loads of natural flavour and aroma. You won't believe that one can even prepare the dish with or without a pinch of salt exclusive of any other seasonings and it still comes out super delicious and tempting to eat.
So for this particular ukwa porridge, I used ehu seeds, ogili ugba, red oil, maggi, basil leaves, potash and dried fish and the outcome was a winner! It will also interest you to know that I scooped out part of the thickened breadfruit liquid referred to as "mmiri ukwa" before mixing together with the cooking ingredients. You can get all the cooking ingredients from any African shops close to you. So give it a try and I bet you will thank me specially for sharing this recipe with you.
Enjoy and feel free to leave your valuable comments in the comment box. Thanks!
Ingredients:
- 2 ehu seeds (roasted and grinded)
- 2 cups African Breadfruit
- Salt to taste
- Pepper to taste
- 10 fresh basil leaves
- 3 tsps. red oil
- 5g edible potash
- 1 stock cube
- 1 dry fish (de-boned and washed)
- 1/2 tsp. ogili ugba
Instructions:
- Wash the breadfruit thoroughly and add in a clean cooking pot.
- Add water to slightly cover the breadfruit.
- Then place the pot on a medium or high heat.
- Add the powdered potash, cover pot and allow to cook until tender.
- Then scoop out some part of the ukwa liquid into a clean bowl and set aside.
- Add the clean dry fish, red oil, pepper, ehu seeds, ogili ugba, stock cube and salt to taste.
- Stir the mixture properly, turn down the heat and allow the ukwa to simmer for another 7-10 minutes so that the ingredients will combine properly.
- Stir the ukwa, bring down from heat then add the basil leaves and stir properly.
- Serve the breadfruit porridge warm with the ukwa liquid that was initially set aside.
- B Remember to top up water while cooking the ukwa until it gets tenderised thus it needs close monitoring.
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