And The Answer Is…

Photos from Kitchen Butterfly

Wow, the overwhelming response from you all is commendable, if you said ‘moinmoin’? Sorry but you got it wrong!! however, a couple of people got it right , it is steamed plantain pudding also called Ukwaka and other names depending on where you are from. And here’s the recipe courtesy of Kitchen Butterfly. Ukwaka can be breakfast food, served with hot, milky corn pap or oats. It could be a snack. Or lunch. Or dinner. Best of all, it is the perfect remedy for overripe plantains

Ingredients

3 overripe plantains, peeled  and cut into 2 inch pieces

1 small (red) onion

1 – 2 fresh chili peppers, to taste

2 tablespoons (vegetable/palm) oil

1 and 1/2 cups water, room temperature

1/2 cup polenta (Polenta is coarsely or finely ground yellow or white cornmeal boiled with water or stock into a porridge and eaten directly or baked, fried or grilled)

Salt, to taste

1 tablespoon dried, ground crayfish (optional)

 

To cook in fresh banana leaves

 

How to

In a blender or food processor, combine plantains, onion, peppers, oil and water till smooth. Essentially, you take extremely sweet plantains, blend them with water, onions and chili peppers, season with some salt and dried crayfish if you wish and then bring them together with a sprinkling of polenta and some vegetable or palm oil. Once the batter is ready, you ladle it into ramekins or gently fold banana leaves into a cone sealing off base and top and then ‘waterbath’ them (like you do for moinmoin)  for half an hour or more, till the puddings are firm.

Pour plantain batter into a bowl and add polenta (and crayfish, if using), stir till well combined and then salt to taste.One critical success factor of this is the balance between sweet, hot and salty. The peppers need to be prominent but not too much to cut through the (otherwise sickening) sweetness of the plantains and that needs to be balanced with a healthy pinch of salt. 

 Using banana leaves, the traditional way, fold and pour batter into each and wrap. When your batter is all used up, line the base of a large pan with some banana leaves and stack the banana wraps, first covering the base and then putting the rest on top. Pour in a couple of cups of water – not to cover the wraps but up to a third of the way up. You could always start out with a little and add more water as necessary. They should be ready after half an hour of cooking on the stovetop. When they’re ready, allow to cool for a few minutes and then serve as you will.

Yummy. If any of you tries it, send me an email at info@stephaniedaily.com and tell me how it went. Let’s get creative and tell me what you will eat it with it?

xoxo

SL