Asaro
A Yoruba yam porridge, also called yam pottage, genuinely different from pounded yam despite sharing the same base ingredient: pounded yam boils yam and pounds it into a smooth, neutral, stretchy starch eaten alongside a separate soup, while asaro cooks yam chunks directly in a pepper-tomato-onion sauce with palm oil until soft, then breaks them down into the sauce itself, a wet, one-pot porridge rather than a starch-and-soup pairing. Real asaro gets its characteristic deep red-orange hue from unrefined palm oil, finished with crayfish and often leafy greens like ugu.
Seafood
⚠ Contains: Shellfish. Always check your own ingredients — this isn't a guarantee for severe allergies.
Ingredients
- 1kg white yam, peeled and cubed
- 3 bell peppers, blended
- 2 scotch bonnet chiles, blended
- 1 onion, chopped
- 1/3 cup palm oil
- 2 tbsp ground crayfish
- 1 cup ugu or spinach, chopped
- Salt, to taste
Steps
- Boil the yam in water with the blended pepper, chile, and onion until the yam is very soft.
- Stir in the palm oil and crayfish.
- Mash the yam roughly into the sauce with a wooden spoon until it forms a thick porridge, adding water as needed to loosen.
- Fold in the chopped greens and simmer a few minutes more.
- Season with salt and serve hot.