Kenkey

Fanti Kenkey with fish

Kenkey is a type of dumpling made from fermented corn that is popular throughout West Africa and especially in Ghanaian cuisine , especially in coastal areas, and is one of the staple foods .

The dumpling, which has a mildly sour taste due to the preparation, is often eaten as a side dish to grilled or fried fish and served with a soup or an uncooked sauce made from onions, tomatoes, pepper and salt.

For the preparation, the corn kernels are first cleaned and soaked in water for 1 to 3 days. The grains are then washed and ground to a very fine corn flour . A dough with a water content of about 50 to 55% is made from this. The dough will now be given in the fermentation tank, where he 2 (for Fanti -Kenkey ) to 3 days (for Ga -Kenkey ) at room temperature (about 25 to 30 ° C) by spontaneous fermentation fermented. The predominant microorganisms in this sourdough are lactic acid bacteria and yeast . Part of the dough (about ⅓ for Fanti-Kenkey , ⅔ for Ga-Kenkey ) is now boiled with water to form a sticky paste ( aflata ), mixed with the rest of the dough and formed into dumplings. In the Ga-Kenkey variant , the dough is additionally salted and shaped into balls weighing around 300 g, which are then wrapped in moistened corn leaves. Fanti-Kenkey are cylindrical in shape and wrapped in banana leaves. The formed kenkey are cooked or steamed in water for about 3 hours . The cooking water is collected and used as a drink rich in electrolytes .

Kenkey is available in restaurants and in chop bars (street restaurants ) as an accompaniment to sauces with vegetables, meat or fish.

A variant of the kenkey is banku , a dough dumpling that is also made from leavened corn, but is not cooked in the banana leaf.

Web links

recipe

Individual evidence

^ ^A ^b ^c ^d Mary Halm, Wisdom Kofi Amoa-Awua, Mogens Jakobsen: Kenkey: An African Fermented Maize Product . In: YH Hui, Lisbeth Meunier-Goddik, Åse Solvejg Hansen, Jytte Josephsen, Wai-Kit Nip, Peggy S. Stanfield, Fidel Toldrá (eds.): Handbook of Food and Beverage Fermentation Technology . Marcel Dekker , New York / Basel 2004, ISBN 0-8247-4780-1 , chapter 44 .
↑ Charles G. Sinclair: Dictionary of Food: International Food and Cooking Terms from A to Z . 2nd Edition. A & C Black, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-4081-0218-3 , pp. 313 .
↑ James C. McCann: Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine . Ohio University Press, Athens 2009, ISBN 978-0-89680-464-7 , pp. 129 .

[:0-1] A ^b ^c ^d Mary Halm, Wisdom Kofi Amoa-Awua, Mogens Jakobsen: Kenkey: An African Fermented Maize Product . In: YH Hui, Lisbeth Meunier-Goddik, Åse Solvejg Hansen, Jytte Josephsen, Wai-Kit Nip, Peggy S. Stanfield, Fidel Toldrá (eds.): Handbook of Food and Beverage Fermentation Technology . Marcel Dekker , New York / Basel 2004, ISBN 0-8247-4780-1 , chapter 44 .

[2] Charles G. Sinclair: Dictionary of Food: International Food and Cooking Terms from A to Z . 2nd Edition. A & C Black, London 2005, ISBN 978-1-4081-0218-3 , pp. 313 .

[3] James C. McCann: Stirring the Pot: A History of African Cuisine . Ohio University Press, Athens 2009, ISBN 978-0-89680-464-7 , pp. 129 .