Tiger Nuts: Another African food discovered by US health food enthusiasts

Tiger nuts (aka "chufa," or technically, Cyperus Esculentas), are included in the 1996 initial book in the Lost Crops of Africa series (Grains, Vol. 1), published by the National Academy Press.

In Ghana people delight in eating tiger nuts raw as a snack food, kind of like peanuts (though one spits out the fibrous coating after  chewing them to extract all the sweet milky juice.) 

Back in 2009 I posted a recipe for "atadwe milkye" or tigernut pudding. At that time I had to import the tigernuts from Spain, and they required a long soaking before grinding them to make the pudding.

While preparing to have some recipe testers try their hands at making this wonderful gluten-free pudding, I began searching for a source closer to home. 

Lo and behold: the health foods community has discovered tiger nuts! Two British-born men, Jack Sims and Jim McNulty, teamed up in 2013 to begin making this product available to the U.S. market via Tigernuts USA. They are also taking things one step further by providing the option of purchasing them with some of the outer husk removed (the part that we strained out repeatedly through silk cloth in Ghana after grinding the rice and tigernuts together). And soon, they are going to have tigernut flour available! There are all sorts of possibilities for simplifying the process of making the pudding.

My first order just arrived and I'll begin trying their nuts out soon.










Also, I want to thank all the folks who have volunteered to help out with the recipe testing. We can always use more! Just fill in the form and forward it to me. Also, the first couple of volunteers have emailed the results of their efforts and you can see their photos at the pinterest site. It is very encouraging and helpful to hear from all of you, and will definitely improve the final book.

Recipe #26 (tested): Silky Tigernut Pudding (Atadwe Milkye)

I've tried various ways of making the pudding now, and here's my recipe. The only hard part is locating the tigernuts (see my post from October 29)

Recipe #26 (revised): Silky Tigernut Milk Pudding (Atadwe Milkye)

Ingredients:

1 cup of tigernuts (chufa)

1/4 cup of long grain white rice (or rice flour)

1/4 cup of sugar

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon of salt (to taste)

1 1/2 cups plus 2/3 cups of water

a few drops of food coloring (optional)

milk or cream, for serving (optional)

Recommended equipment:

A food processor, blender, or other grinder

rubber spatula

fine mesh strainer

cheesecloth

silk scarf (optional)

stainless steel or other nonreactive bowls

stainless steel or other nonreactive mixing spoons and/or whisk

Directions:

1. Remove any shriveled or discolored chufa (tiger nuts), rinse them well several times, then put them into a nonreactive bowl (plastic, glass, ceramic, stainless steel) to soak for several hours or overnight (NOTE: in November in cold Pennsylvania, with not-so-fresh chufa, this meant overnight in the refrigerator, but in warm Ghana with fresh nuts it meant 3 or so hours. Avoid leaving them to soak so long that they begin to ferment.)

2. When ready to make the pudding, pour and drain off the water, rinse once more, and drain again.

3. Grinding: When I made this the first time, I ground the rice into powder separately in a small blender; the second time I simply mixed the rice and tiger nuts together into a food processor to blend them. While the first way seemed more elegant and was more complicated, to be honest I couldn't tell the difference in the final product. Put the 1 cup of chufa nuts and 1/4 cup rice into a food processor and add 1 cup of water. Grind/pulse the nuts and rice several minutes until they are powdery and as fine as you can get them (somehow they reminded me of ground almonds). Use a rubber spatula a few times to push down the tigernut/rice mixture if necessary. (If you are using rice flour or have ground it separately, do not add it until you are at the next step).

4. Scrape the ground mixture into a (nonreactive) bowl. Add another 1/2 cup water to the bowl of the food processor to rinse as much of the dregs out of the processor as possible. Mix the water and ground tigernuts/rice with a spoon. If using ground rice, stir it in at this point.

5. Place a folded cheesecloth over a metal strainer that is over another bowl. Scrape the ground tigernut/rice mixture into the cheesecloth, then gather up the edges of the cheesecloth and squeeze as much liquid as possible into the bowl.

6. Open the cheesecloth (still over the strainer) and pour 2/3 cup of water into the cheesecloth, and then squeeze it again to force as much "milk" as possible into the bowl again. Discard the "dregs" of the nuts.

7. Remembering the silk scarf we used in Ghana, I rinsed out and dried the bowl I used earlier when I emptied the food processor, rinsed out my clean silk scarf and squeezed it as dry as I could, then placed it over the strainer and carefully poured the tigernut milk mixture through it, and squeezed it out as I had with the cheesecloth. The first time I did this (when I ground the nuts and rice separately), I ended up with another couple of tablespoons of fiber/dregs in the cheesecloth, and it was like milking a cow to get all the liquid through the silk. The second time, I'm not sure it made any difference. Perhaps the rice was ground finer the first time and could slip through the cheesecloth, but not the silk, and the second time it was coarser and so didn't need to be restrained. As I said, the flavor was not significantly different, so you decide if you need to use a silk scarf or not. Either way, the final product is definitely silky smooth!

8. After the final straining, pour the "milk" into a heavy nonreactive metal pan (I use stainless steel), and add a little salt to taste (I used less than 1/2 teaspoon), and about 1/4 cup sugar. Heat the milk over medium heat, stirring constantly. Do not boil it. It will thicken in a few minutes. Immediately remove it from the heat and pour or ladle it into serving dishes (I used clear glass, like Barbara). I didn't try molding it, but that is another option. If you like, add a few drops of red or yellow food coloring, or try layering several colors as I did. The natural color is kind of off-white. Allow to cool, and serve topped with evaporated milk, or cream. Yummy! Who said the lactose-intolerant couldn't have pudding?

Recipe #26: Atadwe Milkye (Tiger Nut Pudding)

I just rinsed the tiger nuts (chufa), measured them out and put them on to soak for a few hours. The proportions we used in Ghana were basically 1 to 4: one part rice to 4 parts tiger nuts. I was told for a richer version you can increase the rice. Some people soak the nuts overnight, and some also soak the rice, but at Flair we did neither. For this first testing, I'm going with a cup of tiger nuts to 1/4 cup of long grain white rice (I understand you can also use rice flour in the same proportion).

I was somewhat disappointed in the tiger nuts shipped from Valencia: in Ghana they were always very fresh, but these look like they've seen better days. I'm avoiding shriveled ones (like the cluster on the right in the photo below), and I am still happy to have ANY chufa to use. I wonder how I could get some fresher ones from the U.S., though? At any rate, make sure to pick over the nuts when you are rinsing them (a couple of times) and discard the shriveled or discolored ones, which may just float to the top. Cover the nuts with cold water and let them sit for several hours. It's noon here, so I'll let them soak until 3 p.m., then grind them together in my food processor and continue. (Whoops, that didn't happen. See the rest of this blog posting).


Update: these chufa are so hard and dry I'm going to let them soak overnight. Sorry I won't be able to tell you how it works until I've tested the recipe (I have 3 separate batches going to see what works best). In the meantime, it's interesting that even though all the online information about chufa acknowledges that the root/nut originated in ancient Egypt, and was carried later to Spain and Mexico, no one seems to realize that it's currently eaten in West Africa.

That's another reason why we need more people speaking out about African cuisines! BTW, apparently the Ga name for atadwe milkye is ataanme nmliche (thank you Anthia-Ofo). I believe the Ewe name is atagbe mekye (correct me if I'm wrong). I guess you'll have to wait another day for news on how this turns out.

After soaking the tiger nuts overnight, I'll drain and rinse them, then attempt to grind them together in a food processor (or my blender) until they form a fine powder kind of like cornmeal, only softer.

I'll then mix in about 1.5 cups of water to help release the "milk" from the nuts. I'll likely use my hand for this so I can squeeze the mixture through my fingers.

The next step will be straining it, first using a metal strainer into a bowl, removing as much water as possible. I'll use 2/3 cup of water at the end to rinse the remaining "chaff" (the "dregs") into the bowl with the "milk."

In Ghana we then strained the "milk" through a very fine metal strainer, and finally through a silk scarf to get every piece of "chaff" out (I'll use a cheesecloth for part of this, but don't know yet what I'll do about the silk scarf). We may get almost another half a cup of the "chaff" out in the end.

It will then be time to cook the pudding, adding a bit of salt (maybe 1/2 teaspoon) and a little sugar (about 1/4 cup), bring it to a boil, then quickly reduce the heat to simmer, stirring constantly for about 10-12 minutes, until it thickens. It can be poured into a serving bowl, or individual dishes, or into a mold (like a jello mold), and cooled before serving.

Barbara says she likes to serve this in clear glass serving dishes, and sometimes colors it slightly yellow, or even layers it in 3 separate colors, like pink, yellow, and the natural color. One cookbook from Ghana suggests coloring it with "black jack," which may be a mineral, but I'm not sure.

So, that's the basic recipe. I'll confirm it tomorrow.

One final note: I've always hosted this blog on my own server, but will soon transfer it to blogger's so that I can take advantage of identifying "followers," you loyal readers who keep me motivated to continue posting.

Tigernuts (chufa), another "Lost Crop" found

There is a grass-like sedge, cyperus esculentus, from ancient Egypt, whose nut-like fruit, actually the root, grows underground like a peanut (or groundnut) and that is known in Ghana as tigernut, and in Mexico and Spain as chufa (where they are used to make a drink called horchata (or orxata) chufa . Apparently, the Arabs took the sedge from Egypt to Spain between the 8th and 13th centuries, especially to Valencia. The Spanish took it to Mexico.

Today it grows throughout the Americas, including almost every state in the U.S., where it is used as feed for turkeys, ducks and wild game, and as fish bait. That's like saying corn is only fit to feed cows, or peanuts are only for elephants.

I'm fond of a rich version of a wonderful pudding, called atadwe milkye (tigernut milk), made from these nuts ground together with rice and sugar, then strained repeatedly, cooked and chilled. It looks like it has milk in it, but does not, and so is a nice choice for the lactose intolerant.

When I asked Barbara to teach me to make it, she reminisced about how she served this pudding to Hassanal Bolkiah, the Sultan of Brunei, and his family in 1999. She served it in crystal champagne glasses, with fresh fruit.

While we were in Ghana in 2008, I broke my cheap electric blender trying to grind the tigernuts (in Ghana one just sends things to the local miller at the market, from corn to millet to tigernuts, as shown below).

Since coming back to the U.S., I was uncertain of where to obtain tigernuts, but finally settled on ordering Spanish chufa from La Tienda. They arrived yesterday, and I'm excited to try my hand at duplicating the recipe Barbara and I developed at Flair. Perhaps I'll presoak the tigernuts, and maybe use my food processor to grind them. Check back to find out how it goes.