COPPERAsida recipe
A sorghum dough fermented overnight, beaten in boiling water with a wooden mufraka and set as a jelly-firm dome inside a moat of meat stew.
Ingredients
- 300 g sorghum flour
- 800 ml water
- 1 tbsp plain yogurt
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tbsp vegetable oil
- 500 ml meat and tomato stew
How to make Asida
- Mix 300 g of sorghum flour with 800 ml of water and 1 tsp of salt into a smooth slurry, then stir in 1 tbsp of plain yogurt as a starter.
- Cover and leave it 12 to 24 hours at room temperature until it smells and tastes sharply sour; this fermentation is the dish and cannot be skipped.
- Bring 800 ml of water to a hard boil in a heavy pot.
- Pour the fermented slurry into the boiling water all at once and beat it immediately with a wooden stick (mufraka) to break every lump.
- Keep beating over medium heat for 8 to 10 minutes until the mass is thick enough to hold the stick upright and tastes cooked, not floury.
- Rub a bowl with 1 tbsp of vegetable oil, pack the hot asida in, and let it sit 20 minutes so it sets to a jelly firmness.
- Turn it out in the middle of a wide platter as a smooth dome.
- Ladle 500 ml of hot meat and tomato stew (mullah) in a moat around the base and eat by cutting the edge of the dome into the sauce.
What is Asida?
Asida is a traditional dish from Sudan, boiled, and takes about 18 hours and 30 minutes from start to finish. It is built around meat and tomato stew and sorghum flour. The recipe below uses 6 ingredients and is written out step by step.
How long does Asida take?
At 1110 minutes it is slower than 95% of the 586 dishes in Copper's atlas. The method runs to 8 steps, the longest being 20 minutes.
Any tips for making Asida?
Let the sorghum slurry ferment until sharply sour before cooking, then beat it at once in the boiling water to break every lump.
How Asida compares
Meat and tomato stew appears in no other dish in the atlas.
Cooked with the same thing elsewhere
Other traditional dishes built on sorghum flour, from other countries.
Copper documents Sudan alongside 197 other countries. Every recipe is free to read, with the full ingredient list and every step.