Poundo Yam vs Amala vs Semo: Which Nigerian Swallow Should You Buy?
If you did not grow up making swallow, the shelf is confusing. Several bags of pale powder, similar names, and nobody explains that they behave completely differently.
Poundo yam
Poundo is instant pounded yam flour. Real pounded yam means a mortar, a pestle and forty minutes of genuine effort. This takes four.
Comes out: white, firm, stretchy. The closest to the real thing.
Goes with: egusi, oha, bitterleaf, nsala.
Amala
Dried yam flour, properly called elubo. Made from the same tuber as poundo, and completely different in the bowl.
Comes out: dark brown and soft. The colour surprises people the first time and it is entirely correct.
Goes with: ewedu and gbegiri with buka stew, which together make abula.
This is the mistake people make: amala and poundo are both yam, so they get treated as interchangeable. They are not. Using poundo where a recipe wants amala gives you the right calories and the wrong dish.
Semovita and semolina
Wheat-based and the smoothest of the lot. Semovita is a blend, softer and more elastic. Plain semolina is coarser and firmer.
Comes out: pale, smooth, completely mild.
Goes with: egusi, ogbono, okra, efo riro.
Semo is the most forgiving if you are still learning, because it is very hard to make it taste wrong.
Eba, for completeness
Made from garri. Slightly grainy, faintly sour, and the cheapest of all four. It also has the advantage that you can drink it cold when you cannot face cooking.
The method, which is the same for all of them
- Boil the water, then lower the heat.
- Sprinkle the flour in gradually while turning hard with a wooden spoon. Never tip it in.
- Keep turning as it thickens and pulls away from the sides.
- Splash in a little hot water, cover, steam two minutes. Almost everybody skips this and it is the difference between smooth and slightly raw.
- Turn again until glossy, then shape with a wet spoon.
Which to buy first
- Garri if you are stocking from nothing. Cheap, keeps forever, works with everything.
- Semovita next, for something smoother and quicker.
- Poundo when you are cooking for people.
- Amala when you are ready to make ewedu and gbegiri properly.
We ship all of them anywhere in the United States.