Sudanese ful

Ingredients

• Ful medames beans — soaked overnight400 g
• Sesame oil60 ml
• White brined cheese150 g
• Eggs — boiled4
• Tomatoes2
• Onion1
• Garlic4 clove
• Ground cumin2 tsp
• Lemon2
• Chilli1
• Flatbread — to serve4
• Saltto 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

   Drain the soaked beans, cover them with fresh water and boil ninety minutes, until completely soft.

   92 min

2. 2

   Pour off most of the water, leaving half a cup, salt the beans and mash them about halfway.

   8 min

3. 3

   Crush the garlic with salt and cumin and stir it through the beans.

   5 min

4. 4

   Turn them into a wide bowl and pour the sesame oil over without stirring it in.

   3 min

5. 5

   Scatter over the crumbled cheese, chopped tomato, onion, chilli and halved eggs.

   8 min

6. 6

   Serve with lemon and flatbread. It is eaten by hand from the shared bowl.

   4 min

About the dish

The beans are mashed in the pot they cooked in, with a wooden masher, and only partly: some must stay whole. A blender purée makes an entirely different food.

The sesame oil here is local and unrefined, with a strong smell. It goes in at the end and is never heated — heat takes the aroma out of it.

Ful is the Sudanese breakfast, eaten from a shared bowl with bread. Each person works their own side and nobody touches the middle until the edges are gone.

Worth knowing

• — Tinned beans work: they only need warming and mashing, and that is what Sudanese households do on a weekday.
• — Salt only once the beans are soft. In salted water the skins stay tough.
• — The sesame oil cannot be substituted here: plain vegetable oil adds fat without aroma, and aroma is exactly what it is poured for.

Nutrition

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

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

24 g

Fat

24 g

Carbs

44 g

More from Sudan

• Asida with mulah — A stiff porridge of sorghum or wheat, served with stewed meat in a dried okra sauce.