HOW TO MAKE DELICIOUS AKARA (BEAN BALL)

Akara (Beanball) is a deep fried meal made from ground beans (Black eyed peas either white or the brown species) mixed with other ingredients as you will find out in this recipe to make a sumptuous delicious breakfast. It’s one of the most common meals you’d find on the breakfast table in most Nigerian homes during the weekends.

It can be taken alone as a snack or served with Pap (akamu “Igbo”/ Ogi “Yoruba”/koko”Hausa”), Bread, Garri, peppered stew e.t.c.

Akara also known as bean balls, bean cakes, bean fritas or acarajé in Portuguese, its is a Nigerian breakfast recipe made with beans normally eaten during the weekend, precisely Saturday morning.
Akara balls reminds me so much of the weekends when I was in secondary school, my mum doesn’t miss any Saturday without preparing akara for our eating pleasure and we all loved it.

This recipe is also going to be the one of the softest, easiest, fluffiest akara you’d ever make.

Ingredients to make Akara

2 cup of Beans (black-eyed or brown beans)

2 habanero peppers (also chilli peppers)

1 big sized onion

Salt to taste

Vegetable Oil for frying/ palm oil (For deep frying)
3 Chilli pepper (Shombo)

2 Scotch bonnet pepper (Ata rodo)
Crayfish little quantity.

Tools you will need

Blender

Mortar and Pestle

Sieve

Procedure

Sort the beans to separate the chaff of the beans, today, I used the white beans and it came out very nice. To remove the skin, there are three methods i.e The hand method, the blender method and the mortar and pestle method. The hand and the mortar and pestle method are the manual way of peeling beans while the blender method is easier and could take few minutes to complete.

I used the mortar and pestle method, just put your beans int the mortar and add water but not too much and pound it but not hard within 5 minutes the coat of the beans will pill off.Then remove it and put in a bowl for washing.

It is also important to know that you do not let salt come in contact with the beans you will use in making akara till you are ready to fry it. Salt is believed to destroy the leavening property of beans. This is what prevents spattering of the beans batter during frying. Also, do not blend onions with the beans while blending it else while frying it, your akara will come out scattered or it will even scatter and mess up your frying oil.

Then soak the beans in water to make it soft enough for your blender. If you will grind it using the heavy duty grinders in Nigerian markets like I did because I wanted it extra smooth, it will not be necessary to soak the beans for a long time.

Cut the pepper and onions into desirable sizes and blend them differently and then blend your beans and crayfish together.

Making Akara

When grinding the beans, don’t add to much water, thee less water you add at the grinding stage, the more the beans batter will stay together during frying thereby reducing spatter.

Set some vegetable oil on the cooker to heat up, I used vegetable oil, but if you want the native kind of taste you can also use red oil, trust me, it tastes delicious too. The oil should be at least 3 inches deep.

Put some of the ground beans into a mortar and stir the beans puree with the pestle in a continuous circular motion. You need to apply some pressure so that you can energise the particles of the beans puree and make it smooth.

This stirring technique releases the gas that will act as a leavening agent to the beans particles, making them rise and somehow stick together and rise.

Keep stirring till the ground beans appear whiter and you can perceive its peculiar aroma.

Add some of your ground pepper and onions till you get the consistency as shown below.

Check to make sure the oil is hot enough to sizzle but not too hot. If too hot, the akara will spatter as soon as the beans batter hits the oil.

Add salt to your taste and stir again. Salt should always be added just before scooping the beans mixture into the oil.

If salt stays in the mixture for extended periods of time, it will destroy the leavening property of the beans.

This property is what makes the akara float in the oil and prevent spatter during frying.

To fry the akara, scoop the mixture with a table spoon and slowly pour this into the oil and add onions in between the akara and also drop some into the oil for the special aroma and taste as shown below.

Fry the underside till its brown and flip to fry the top side too.

When the akara balls are brown all over, remove and place in a sieve lined with paper towels.

Serve Akara with akamu, custard, agidi (eko), bread or garri.

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HOW TO MAKE DELICIOUS AKARA (BEAN BALL)

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