Yams! You either hate them or love them. One food staple we don’t lack here in Nigeria is definitely yam tubers. I mean, you could find yams being sold in every nook and cranny of the country and at very affordable prices too. With an abundance of yam comes an amazing array of yam recipes. One of such recipes is the yam balls.
Ingredients
For the Yam
• 2 medium slices of yam
• ½ tsp. Salt
• 3 cups Water
• Oil for deep frying
For the filling
• 1 small Tomato
• 2 scotch bonnets “Ata rodo”
• 1 handful Shrimps (I used dry shrimps known as Okporo) – Optional
• ½ small sized Onion
• ½ tsp. garlic powder – Optional
• ½ tsp. curry powder
• ½ tsp. thyme or oregano
• 1 seasoning cube
• salt to taste
• 2 tbsp. oil for frying
For coating the balls
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• 1 raw egg
• ½ cup flour
• ½ tsp. powdered Black/ Cameroon/ chili pepper
Directions
Step 1: Peel the brown skin off the sliced yam and rinse with clean water. Place in a small pot, add some salt and Cook for about 20-25mins till soft (you can check this by in inserting a fork within. If it goes in easily, then it’s done.
Step 2: Cut the boiled yam slices into smaller pieces with a fork. Place in a blender and blend till smooth and stretchy using the blender/food processor method
Note: For the filling, i used the few ingredients listed above. To make it richer, you could use minced/ground beef or chicken, bell peppers, fresh shrimp, fish, sweet corn, spring onions, carrots, peas e.t.c.
Step 3: Chop the Tomato, Scotch bonnets and onion. Grease a small pan with two tbsp. oil and heat on medium. Add the chopped veggies, stir fry for two minutes. Add the garlic powder , curry powder, thyme or Oregano, Crushed seasoning cube, Shrimp, Salt to taste – stir fry for 5 mins. Turn off the burner and leave to cool.
Step 4: Scoop a tablespoon of the yam dough, Flatten the dough and add a little filling making sure you don’t overfill to prevent the balls from bursting open during frying. Seal and roll into a ball. Repeat the process till all the yam dough and filling is used up.
Step 5: For this step, you’d need two separate small bowls. In bowl 1, place the flour and pepper and mix. In bowl 2, Crack the egg into it and whisk. Place the yam ball into the bowl with the whisked egg and coat evenly. Transfer the egg coated yam ball into the flour and coat evenly also. Set this aside and repeat for the rest of the batch
Step 6: Heat up the oil in a frying pan till hot. Drop the yam balls into the oil and fry till golden brown. remove from the oil and drain on a paper towel
Stuffed yam balls can be eaten with peppered stew/ sauce, Ketchup, Smoked fish stir-fry.
