Asida with mulah

Ingredients

• Sorghum or wheat flour400 g
• Lamb — diced600 g
• Ground dried okra60 g
• Onions2
• Tomato paste3 tbsp
• Garlic4 clove
• Peanut butter2 tbsp
• Ground coriander1 tsp
• Vegetable oil60 ml
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Brown the meat with the onion and garlic, then add the tomato paste and coriander.

   15 min

2. 2

   Add water, season and stew forty minutes, until the meat is tender.

   42 min

3. 3

   Stir in the peanut butter and rain in the ground okra in a thin stream, stirring constantly.

   10 min

4. 4

   Cook the sauce ten minutes; it turns thick and stringy.

   12 min

5. 5

   Bring a litre of salted water to the boil, set a cup aside and rain in the flour, working it with a stick.

   8 min

6. 6

   Work it fifteen minutes, adding the reserved water, until the mass is dense and smooth.

   17 min

7. 7

   Turn the asida onto a platter with a wet spoon, make a hollow and pour the mulah into it.

   6 min

About the dish

Asida is worked with a wooden stick in the pot without stopping, for about fifteen minutes. Pausing is not an option: lumps in finished asida cannot be broken up.

Mulah, a sauce of dried okra ground to powder, is slippery and stringy, and that is correct. That stringiness is what lets a piece of asida pick it up.

It is eaten from one dish: a hollow is made in the porridge, the sauce is poured in, and pieces are pinched off the edges and dipped. Spoons are not used.

Worth knowing

• — Stir in one direction and never stop. Every pause makes a lump, and lumps in asida read as inexperience.
• — Add the ground okra a little at a time. All at once it clots, and the clot never disperses.
• — Shape the asida with a wet spoon or wet hands, or it sticks fast to everything it touches.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

640 kcal

Protein

32 g

Fat

26 g

Carbs

72 g

More from Sudan

• Sudanese ful — Ful beans cooked soft and mashed in the pot, with sesame oil, cheese and egg.