Cassava: beyond tapioca pudding

In graduate school back in the 1980s, "cassava" was pretty much  a dirty word: empty calories, starchy, toxic, starvation/subsistence food, nutrient-deficient. etc. Not a food for the future, I was advised. Everyone seemed consumed by rice research and the "green revolution."

I vaguely knew there was an International Institute of Tropical Agriculture, based in Nigeria, that did something with cassava (aka yuca, manioc, mandioca), and had heard somewhere in Colombia there was a group (the International Center for Tropical Research) working with cassava, too. But this, anyway, was apparently unrelated to "cuisine."

How the times have changed. There is today a burst of enthusiasm about this tuber (and its leaves), both within African countries and around the world. Cassava is periodically featured in this blog. For example, I have written about the widespread consumption of  cassava in Brazil, and work of some of my colleagues to further respect for it. I have also included recipes using cassava flour, such as Brazil's popular pão de queijo as well as how to make cassava (yucca) dough or cassava (gari) biscuits.

Ghana is a huge wheat importer (estimated in 2010 to be about 270,000 million tons). Periodically, African governments encourage (or require by law) bakers to substitute cassava flour for part of this amount (e.g., in Ghana, in Nigeria, in Tanzania. However, there is still higher status attached to using (expensive) imported wheat flour, or using (expensive imported) rice (see my comments on Flora Nwapa's Cassava Song and Rice Song). 

In 2001, an influential book was published, called The Cassava Transformation: Africa's Best-Kept Secret. The book challenged a number of myths about cassava, while also recognizing its growing importance in Africa and other parts of the tropical world. There have also been major research advances in improving varieties of cassava. Today cassava's image has been largely rehabilitated, and there is renewed interest in using it to replace part of the wheat flour commonly

imported into places like Ghana, Nigeria, or Tanzania. A few years ago I was delighted to see a factory near our house near Tema producing tasty Obama biscuits (cookies) from cassava flour.

I was reminded of the subject of cassava flour in May by a news announcement lauding one of Nigeria's former presidents, Obasanjo, on exporting cassava bread to Tanzania. I hope the rhetoric is matched by government and public support in Africa to raise the stature of cassava, not just for economic, but also culinary reasons.
 

Cassava (manioc) cheese bread: Pão de queijo

As I mentioned in my last post, Brazil has a popular snack and breakfast food called

pão de queijo, a kind of chewy on the inside, crisp on the outside (but not too crisp) muffin/popover/roll/bread made from cassava (mandioca) flour, egg, milk, oil, salt, and cheese. They can be made tiny or large, depending on one's preference. Traditionally pão de queijo is a dough that is kneaded and individual rolls are formed by hand. However, recent adaptations have resulted in a faster, easier version that can be made in muffin tins. That's the first one I tried. Just like adding more liquid to a biscuit dough means you can make drop biscuits, adding extra liquid to the batter means that instead of cooking the  pão de queijo on flat pans like cookie sheets, you can simply pour the batter into greased muffin tins. 

I decided for my first effort to use the 2 types of cassava flour that are available in Brazil: polvilho doce and polvilho azedo--sweet and sour as I explained previously. (By the way, a big "thank you" to my husband and our Brazilian friends Virginia and Renato for going to the store for the flour the day he left Brazil.) Soon I'll experiment with some Ghanaian kokonte (cassava flour). Incidentally, Brazilians have found a way to package and export their bread as a mix. I'll try that, too, but I'm afraid it might be like eating instant mashed potatoes: better than nothing, but nothing like the real thing.

First I assembled the utensils:

• An electric blender
• 2 mini-muffin tins (I like petite-sized pão de queijo)
• A brush to brush oil into the tins
• A scale to weigh the flours (since I was making this the first time I both measured and weighed the flours)
• Assorted U.S. standard measuring cups and spoons (3/4 cup, 1/3 cup, 1/4 cup, 1 teaspoon)
• A rubber spatula 

 And ingredients: flours, salt, egg (room temperature is best), milk, oil (I used olive), cheese (I used half queso fresco, a Mexican mild semi-soft crumbly cheese, and half grated Parmesan cheese).

Quick Basic Brazilian  Pão de Queijo 

• Set the oven to preheat at 375 °F  (NOTE: I used 400 °F but the bread browned a little too quickly for me) 
• Pour some oil into one of the muffin cups in the muffin tins, and use a brush to coat each of the cups well (I had 2 mini-muffin tins, so coated 24 cups).

Add to the blender container:

• 1 egg, room temperature
• 1/3 cup oil (olive, soy, etc.)
• slightly less than 3/4 cup each of  polvilho doce  and polvilho azedo, enough to get about 180 grams (OR, use only one of the flours, or change the proportions. It is probably possible to substitute tapioca flour, but I've not tried that yet)
• 2/3 cup milk (I warmed mine for a minute in the microwave before adding it)
• 3/4  teaspoon salt, or to taste 
• 1/2 cup packed cheese (I used 1/4 cup of the hard Parmesan cheese, grated, and chunks of the queso fresco)
• Cover the blender container and pulse the mixture for about 30 seconds. Stop, uncover the blender and use the spatula to scrap down the sides. Recover and repeat until the mixture is well blended. This only takes a minute or so.
• Fill each muffin cup a good 1/2 full and cook in the preheated oven for about about 20 minutes. The pão de queijo should be just slightly golden. Extra batter can be stored in the refrigerator and used within a few days.

 Pão de queijo is best eaten straight from the oven while still warm. As it cools it get tougher. My husband declared these delicious, and amazingly the 2 dozen quickly disappeared with cups of tea (it would be coffee in Brazil).


I'm eager to try making these with kokonte. I understand that in parts of South America (Colombia?) the cassava flour is supplemented with corn flour. In Ghana other seasoning, like cinnamon or herbs, can be added.

Can't you imagine how delicious the possibilities are? It troubles me that in much of Africa it seems wheat flour is assumed to be THE ingredient for bread-making. In Brazil, people can cut the larger-sized  pão de queijo  and make them into sandwiches, especially filling them with sweet fruit-based fillings. My husband added an African touch by eating his with peanuts and hot sauce!