It is mostly safer to post about a food everyone can relate to but I’m going back to my roots with an achicha ede recipe. Achicha, also called Echicha is my favourite food from my paternal side Nsukka. Nsukka is a town in Enugu state of Nigeria. The town that nurtured Nigeria’s literary giants like Chinua Achebe, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Chika Unigwe and others.
Like most Nsukka (Igbo) food, the preparation of the cocoyam starts long before you cook it, that is why it is not popular. There are different types of achicha, this achicha is simply a beautiful blend of dried and smoked cocoyam (ede) and pigeon peas (fio fio).
Ingredients
- 2 cups of Achicha (dried and smoked cocoyam)
- 2 cups of fio-fio (pigeon peas)
- 11 yellow scotch bonnet peppers
- 2 big onions
- Ground crayfish
- 150ml Palm oil
- Locust bean (ope). Optional.
- Ugba (Sliced African oil bean seed)
- Scent leaves (Basil).
Preparation
•Soak the achicha in warm water for 20 minutes, wash and sieve.
•Boil the fio-fio and put the achicha in a sieve, then place it on a stand in the pot. Water must not get through to it, what you are trying to achieve is the fio-fio boiling while the achicha is steaming. Alternatively, you can tie it in nylon or wrap in banana leaves or aluminium foil and put in the pot as the fio-fio is boiling.
•While it is cooking, blend the yellow peppers, locust bean, crayfish.
•When the fio-fio and achicha are ready, add salt, ugba, melted ope and sliced onions to the paste and fry with palm oil for about 5 minutes.
•Mix the achicha and fio-fio with paste thoroughly. Then your achicha is ready.
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I’ve heard soooo much about Fio-Fio but I’ve never eaten it, hopefully on my 3rd visit to Enugu, I’ll remember to. About Achicha, the only achicha I know is bread oo, I almost thought it was the same thing as akidi😩
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I love akidi too but it’s different and mostly eaten with yam. If you are visiting Enugu town, I wonder if you get it as Achicha Ede is indigenous to Nsukka people. I hope you try it, it’s really delicious.
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This is lovely.I am in a hurry to prepare this meal for my African Queen.
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I hope she loves it. Thank you 😊
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Hmmm this looks yummy. I can become a genius cook just by reading your posts.
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😄😄 I hope. Cooking is an essential skill. 😉
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I love seeing something I have never tried before. But am I right in thinking that there are insects in this dish?
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No! No way. Cocoyam is a type of yam and pigeon peas is a type of beans. Without the crayfish, a type of fish and seasoning, this food would be vegan. The only way insects can be in it if it mistakenly enters during preparation.
I’ll thoroughly search for the English names of some of the ingredients and update the post so it doesn’t confuse anyone again. 😊
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I am so sorry! There was a picture near the top that looked a little bit like insects. Some of my family are in Ghana and Zambia – they do eat ingredients we don’t have on the shelves at the our local Waitrose. My sister used to like snacking on a type of caterpillar. I am vegetarian so it makes me a little squeamish, but she loves them.
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I realised, changed it and captioned it. 😄
Some people here in Nigeria eat a certain type of insect but I just can’t. Thanks for stopping by and pointing it out, it really helped. Thank you!
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The food tastes a bit crunchy and spicy and the onions add a really nice flavour to the taste.
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I’ve never heard of this before but it looks good.
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Thank you! That tends to happen with foods local to smaller communities but what it lacks in popularity, it makes up for it in taste.
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