Cassava & Shaki Suya Hash

I love making hash – great for combining starches, meat, vegetables and sauce, all in one pan.

I employed my cassava chunks in this recipes, along with suya of tripe – shaki to Nigerians.

I got the ‘book’ shaki, known as Bible. Manifold. Onigbawe, in Yoruba. For the ‘pages’ it has.

I love how expressive we are with food, from pet names to ‘this-kinda-makes-sense’ names.

I also got some Tozo, probably from the belly as it is ‘fatty’. Sigh. I like it for how flavourful it can be.

I wanted the hash to have soft, saucy vegetables so I gently crushed the tomatoes, onions, hot peppers and green bell pepper in an Asanka – a Ghanian grinding bowl.

In the manner of my previous hashes, I pan fried the vegetable base in some oil, with the chunks of suya.

Stirring till the mix had a uniform glaze of brown from the suya spice. In went some roasted peanuts – because cassava and peanuts rock. And the cassava chunks. 

I like to hold off seasoning when I do things with suya just so it isn’t overdone. This hash recipe will not suffer from seasoning till the last minute, till you’re sure time’s been spent over the flame.

Quite soon, we were done. I serve this medley with yaji and a delightful scent leaf oil.

It is an interesting combination of starch, vegetables, meat and nuts.

I want the cassava chunks to be more, taste more interesting but they aren’t. They are quite firm and chewy without a particularly distinctive flavour.

The half remind me of sweet potatoes but something’s missing.

Don’t get me wrong, it is nice – the tripe and tozo give it texture. I’m chewing bits and pieces laced with the bright green of scent leaf. The tripe is not hard or soft – it is in between chewy and I have to spend some time on it. Which gives me pause and a chance to savour if I like.

I am glad I tried the cassava but I’m going to have to find more interesting uses for it.

 

So holler at me if you know how one can coax good flavour out of this root. Merci xxx[wpurp-searchable-recipe]Cassava & Shaki Suya Hash – – – [/wpurp-searchable-recipe]