Nigerian Pap

Today I share with you how to make one of the healthy Nigerian food recipes that is great for weight loss at home.

Nigerian Pap is a whole grain meal made from white corn, yellow corn, millet, Guinea corn and sorghum.

I will be using yellow corn for this recipe.

Yoruba people call it ‘Ogi’ while it is called Akamu in Igbo language. In Hausa language Nigerian pap is called ‘koko’

Basically, Akamu is fermented corn, Guinea corn or sorghum that has undergone different stages of preparations to make it smooth, healthy and and a popular choice.

As I continued, I should inform you that you can purchase Nigerian pap either fresh or dry powder here

Popular Nigerian Pap food combinations

Pap is eaten for breakfast alone or combined with other foods to make a wholesome meal.

Some common pap combinations are listed below.

• Akamu and Akara
• Pap with Milk and Sugar
• Pap with Moi Moi
• Pap and honey
• Pap with Nigerian Beans With Palm Oil
• Sweetened pap with bread
• Pap with Steamed Plantains or Fried Plantain
• And many more

Is Nigerian pap healthy?

In many Nigerian homes, the common food fed to babies is pap, for decades Nigerian mothers have been using pap to wean babies of breast milk.

The fermentation process of making Nigerian pap fortifies it with probiotics that hare good for gut health.

Also, it is light , digests easily and for this reason many fitness enthusiasts include pap in their diet.

You should know that, the effectiveness of eating pap for weight loss is heavily dependent on the other foods you combine with it.

This means that just as Akamu is good for weight loss, Akamu can also help you gain weight or make you fat.

Find the list of ingredients stated below.

Ingredients for Nigerian Pap

• Yellow corn
• Ginger
• Water

PREPARATION TIME : 4DAYS

I will not only show you how to make Akamu from scratch using yellow corn, I will also be sharing with you where you can find the simple steps on how to preserve Akamu without fridge Click here .

How to make Nigerian pap from scratch

• Pour yellow corn into a big bowl filled with water.
• Clean the corn and pour into another big bowl
• Add a lot of water till it covers the corn
• Cover it, let it ferment and soften for 3 days
• After 3 days open the fermented corn – at this point you will perceive a peculiar smell don’t worry, that is normal because the corn has been fermented
• Drain the corn water and make sure you rinse the corn at least twice
• Wash the ginger very well
• Blend the fermented corn and raw ginger to a paste

Make sure the corn paste is smooth enough to easily sieve out the pap. Also make sure the corn paste is not too smooth that the shaft can be easily removed.

• Put a pap sieve into a bowl, some people use cheese cloth but I think the sieve is easier and faster
• Put some of the corn paste into the sieve
• Use your fingers to lightly spread the corn paste in the sieve
• Add water move your hands in a circular motion so that the water can help separate the pap from the shaft
• Add water repeatedly until it remains only the shaft in the sieve
• Remove the shaft and repeat the process until all the corn paste have been sieved
• Set the corn shaft aside
• Cover the bowl where the pap was sieved into for 3-5hours
• After 4-5hours you will notice a clear liquid at the top while the corn paste has settled to the bottom
• Get a big bowl and decant the clear liquid into it
• That clear liquid is called omidun or omikan.
• The white paste settled at the bottom is Akamu.

You can cook it and get you desired Pap consistency.

But raw pap sold in Nigeria always comes with thick consistency i.e. thicker than the consistency achieved so far.

This is because it gives customers their money’s worth and it is easy to store and preserve. Watery pap spoils easily because of its high water content.

So let me show you how to remove the excess water from the watery pap.

HOW TO REMOVE EXCESS WATER FROM NIGERIAN PAP

If you have followed the steps above at this point you have a watery pap, you should follow the steps I am about to outline to remove the excess liquid from your pap to make it thicker, drier and easy to store and preserve.

• Get a cheesecloth
• Put the cheese cloth over bowl
• Make sure the cheese cloth does not have any hole
• Pour the water pap into the cheese cloth
• Tie the cheesecloth
• Put the cheese cloth in your kitchen sink or in a basket which will be put in a big bowl
• Place a nylon over the cheese cloth
• Put a heavy object on the nylon
• Leave the heavy object in the cheese cloth for 3-4hours or longer depending on dry you want the pap.

For the heavy object I usually use heavy stone but you can use something else as long as it is heavy.

After this is done your pap will thicker with less liquid content and also easy to preserve.

Simply put your Ogi in your fridge to preserve it. You can also keep it frozen to make it last longer.

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