Aseeda

The sorghum porridge of the Upper Nile, flour beaten hard into boiling water until smooth and stiff, turned out as a dome and eaten with a well of stew in the centre

Origin: Juba and the Upper Nile, South Sudan

From the journey of Sorghum.

Aseeda is the staple of the Upper Nile and it is made from sorghum, the grain that was domesticated in this part of Africa and that still feeds most of it. Flour is beaten into boiling water with a wooden stick and worked hard until it is completely smooth and stiff enough to hold a shape, then turned out as a dome with a hollow pressed into the top, into which the stew is poured. Sorghum is the crop that suits the country. It tolerates the heat, the erratic rain, and the poor soils of the savannah belt in a way that maize does not, and it is drought-hardy enough to be worth planting in a year that may not deliver. South Sudan's other staples sit alongside it: groundnuts, sesame, and the cattle that the Dinka and Nuer measure wealth in. The usual partner is bamia, a stew of dried okra pounded to powder and cooked with sesame paste, meat, and onion, which thickens in the pot in the way that only okra does. Eating is communal and by hand from the shared dome, and the hollow at the top is not decoration; it is the bowl. The same dish under the same name runs across Sudan, Chad, and into the Horn, and further north it is made with wheat instead. The sorghum version is the older one.

Ingredients

Porridge

  • 400 g sorghum flour
  • 1.3 litres water

Seasoning

  • 1 tsp fine salt

To finish

  • 2 tbsp sesame oil or ghee, to finish

Method

  1. Whisk 120 g of the sorghum flour into 350 ml of the cold water until completely smooth.
  2. Bring the remaining water to a rolling boil with the salt, then pour in the slurry, whisking hard, and cook for five minutes until thickened.
  3. Add the remaining flour in small handfuls over a low heat, beating hard after each addition until it is fully absorbed before the next.
  4. Keep beating and folding the mass against the side of the pan for fifteen to twenty minutes over a low heat.
  5. It is ready when it is glossy, very stiff, and pulls cleanly away from the pan in one mass.
  6. Wet a bowl, press the aseeda into it, invert onto a plate, and press a deep hollow into the top with the back of a wet spoon.
  7. Pour a little sesame oil or melted ghee into the hollow and serve hot with an okra or meat stew.

Notes

Sorghum flour is sold by African and health-food grocers and is naturally gluten free. Bamia, the dried-okra and sesame stew, is the classic partner; the okra is pounded to a powder that thickens the pot. Northern Sudanese aseeda is often made with wheat flour and is paler and softer; the sorghum version belongs to the south. It stiffens sharply as it cools and is always served straight from the pan.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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