Cocoyam Dundun

Crushing on Red Cocoyam

Visits to Sunday Market after church seems to be a ritual now for me. Main mission is to buy oranges for my orange juice for the week. I am one of those that believe that food items from this market are fresher and straight from the farms. I really hope I am right  if not ….. Hmmm.
Whilst picking up the oranges my eyes seem to be focused on the red coco yams . My mind flashes back to my primary school days when as children we queued up at ‘Iya Coco”s stall to buy fried Coco yam  wrapped in newspapers with little drops of pepper sauce on these pipping hot coco yam. This is one of those street foods in Lagos that has not gone away.
Usually these women fried the yam in  oil mixed with water. The result is a piece of yam that is really crunchy and nice on the outside and soft on the inside. These pieces will soak up lots of oil but still remain crispy on the outside.
I have tried ones to do the water/ oil frying and it was a near disaster I almost set my house ablaze, so I have kept off this method.Call it phobia but I will not experiment again unless I do this outdoor.
What I do rather which also reduces the oil in the Cocoyam is to boil the yam with a little salt ,till very soft then fry . Be sure to heat the oil to very hot so the yam fries quickly and does not absorb oil.
I love to see the starch explode on the surface of the yam and when fried that is when you get the crispy outside. Even as I write this piece I feel like getting into the Kitchen to have some more 🙂
For the sauce ….this was also something constructed by using items in my fridge. I  fried some chopped onion, added some tomato/ pepper blend, chicken seasoning , pieces of fried fish and salt. That was it .
Served hot with the pepper sauce Cocoyam  Dudundun with its nice unique aroma is such a simple but satisfying meal. Cocoyam by the way is one of the richest tuber foods we have around.