How to Make Cassava Dough: Fastest Way at Home
Watch my YouTube video on how to make cassava dough for Banku and Gari. The guides are simple and easy to learn.
You can start to process your cassava dough for Banku and Gari after watching these videos. You will also learn how to make gari for yourself and your household.
How to Make Cassava Dough
1. Harvest or buy cassava
If you have a cassava farm, and your cassava is fully matured for harvest, you can harvest for dough.
Where to get cassava
Buy cassava from farmers on the farm. It is cheaper than buying from the market that is if you are buying in abundance.
When a family or friend is harvesting their cassava, you can help them and get some tubers at no cost.
You can also buy from the market or a cassava farmer without going to the farm. Tell the farmer you need some tubers for fufu or dough and they know the variety to sell.
Planting cassava
Growing cassava is very easy. Anyone at all can start a cassava farm in his backyard provided the land is favorable.
- Cultivate a piece of land and fence it to protect the crop from goats and sheep if you’re planting at home.
- Get a cassava stem and cut it into pieces.
- Use a cutlass to dig a swallow hole then plant the stem.
- Wait for 6 – 9 months for the cassava to mature. Some cassava may take a year to harvest.
- Weed your farm with cutlass, hoe, or weedicides to control weeds.
Cassava takes 6 months to 1 year to fully mature depending on the variety planted.
How long does cassava take to grow
The six-month-old cassava is only suitable for fufu within six months. Beyond six months, you can only use it for cassava dough.
But the 9-month – 1-year variety is suitable for both fufu and dough after 9 months and 1 year.
My parents prefer the 9-month and 1-year variety to the 6 months even though the 6 months is shorter because they like fufu all season round.
2. Peel the cassava
After harvesting, peel your cassava. Use a knife to remove the cassava peel. Exercise patience doing this not to wound yourself.
Cut bigger tubers into pieces before peeling them to make them easy to peel. You should split your cassava open to remove the central vascular tissue or fiber for easy grating. Watch this video to learn how to do this.
Benefits of cassava peel
- Cassava peel is used as feed for livestock by drying the peel under the sun.
- People also use the dried peels as medicine and aphrodisiac (there’s no science backing this)
3. Wash to remove dirt
The next stage is washing the peeled cassava to remove dirt. Soak peeled cassava in water for about 5 – 10 minutes before washing. This makes it easy to get rid of the dirt.
4. Grate the peeled cassava
Mostly, cassava is ground the same day it is peeled using a cassava grating machine. You can also grate your cassava at home with a kitchen grater if it’s not plenty.
We usually grind our cassava with the grating machine and pay the operator because we make a large amount of cassava dough and preserve it for 1-2 months.
Preserving peeled cassava
- Soak peeled cassava in fresh water for a day if you don’t have time to grate it the same day. It can be kept in water for a maximum of 3 days before grinding.
- Replace water with fresh water each day until you grate the cassava to keep it fresh (keeping it for long in water will cause it to rot and ferment, hence, giving your dough a bad scent).
Mill cassava until smooth and fine (you can mill multiple times till you are satisfied with the texture). When grinding cassava for gari, you should grind it a maximum of 2 times.
Always tell the grating machine operator what you will use your dough for so that they guide you (number of times to grate).
5. Draining cassava dough
- Pour cassava dough into a clean sack or cloth that can pass liquid. Twist the sack several times and tie it well.
- Place on a flat surface e.g., a flat stone, and cover it with another flat stone to drain the liquid.
- Keep the cassava dough under the stone for 1 to 2 days depending on the temperature.
- Untie the sack or cloth, check it to see if it is dried, and remove and place it into a clean container when it is dried.
- If your cassava dough is not dried, mix it with your hand, tie it again, and put more stones or heavy objects on it.
- It should be dried after the second day. If your dough is not well-grated, use a sieving tray to sieve it. You can also use a strainer to strain it whenever you are going to prepare banku.
Mill cassava the same day you peel it (recommended).
If you prefer video, please watch the video below.
Now your cassava dough is ready for preparing banku. Mix it with corn dough and cook.
How to Make Gari: Step by Step
- Harvest or buy cassava from the market
- Peel the cassava
- Wash to remove dirt
- You can soak for a day if you don’t have time to grate the same day
- Pour the water and add fresh water if you can’t grind the next day (keeping it for long will cause it to rot and ferment, hence, giving your dough a bad scent)
- Grate for about 2 times
- Pour in a clean sack that can pass the liquid
- Place on a flat surface e.g., a flat stone, and cover it with another flat stone to drain the liquid
- Keep under the stone for two to three days depending on the temperature
- If it is dried, remove it and place it into a clean container
- Now your cassava dough is ready for preparing gari
- Put a frying tray or frying pan on fire for 5 – 10 minutes to keep it warm
- Fetch a bit by bit into the iron pan or frying pan and use the stirrer to mix the cassava dough
- Fry for 30-40 minutes
- It will change color to creamy color
How I Make My Gari Soakings for Lunch
Gari is processed from cassava that is grated into the dough and then fried in a hot shallow iron or frying pan. The dried crispy product is then used for different recipes including gari fotor, pino, soakings, etc.
Gari soakings is a recipe made by mixing gari with water, sugar, milk, groundnut, salt, and other nutritious ingredients in a large bowl, cup, or glass.
Among High School Students in Ghana, gari soakings is simply called “soakings”. This food is also part of the “Student Companion” a term commonly used by High School students to refer to gari and shitor and other handy foods eaten in the dormitory without cooking.
Milk, milo, groundnut, biscuit, bread, and salt are additional ingredients to make the soakings rich in nutrition and also add extra taste as soakings can be prepared only with gari, sugar, and water (raw soakings).
The gari soakings prepared with gari, sugar, and water are called raw soakings.
Ingredients for making balanced diet gari soakings
- Gari
- Sugar
- Salt
- Water
- Milo
- Milk
- Groundnut
- Biscuit
- Bread
The ingredients for making gari soakings vary from individual to individual. I prefer gari soakings with gari, salt, milk powder, groundnut, and biscuit.
I use Milo once in a while. When I am hungry and I want to drink gari soakings, that is when I add bread.
I prefer king crackers to sugary biscuits so I mostly use King crackers for soaking.
Since I take my soakings for lunch, I use chilled water.
Let’s go straight and make our soakings.
Instructions for nutritious gari soakings
I have two stages for making gari soakings for reasons I will explain later.
You can go wild on your soakings and mix them with any preferred ingredient to reap the best out of your gari soakings.
Enjoy your afternoon with my gari soakings recipe.
Stage 1: making gari soakings
Mix 1 cup of gari with 2 teaspoons of sugar, ½ teaspoon of salt, 4 teaspoons of milk powder, 4 teaspoons of groundnut, and a biscuit in a clean dry bowl.
Stage 2: making gari soakings
Fetch an amount of the dry mixture into a bowl, cup, or glass, add your preferred amount of water, and stir the mixture well, add more ingredients if needed, and drink.
Why do I have two stages for making gari?
Gari is a carbohydrate food. When you add water to it, the amount increases. The gari soaks the water, then increases.
So, if you pour water on 1 cup of gari or ½ cup, you should expect more in return in a few minutes.
Not only that, since it soaks the water, it becomes soft and loses its taste making it hard to enjoy.
Another thing is, I don’t prefer much sugar and I also don’t want my soakings to be thick. So, I have my first mixture in a dry bowl. Later transferred to the bowl or cup I am going to drink from.
This way, I can control the amount to drink at a go. In addition, it prevents the gari from getting too soft because I only fetch a little at a time.
Lastly, I can preserve the rest of the mixture for another time or day when I am satisfied or no longer interested.