Abacha (African Salad) – Dried Shredded Cassava, Igbo Ncha

Abacha

Dried shredded cassava, and the backbone of the dish everybody outside the East insists on calling African salad. In Igbo homes it is just abacha, and it is not really a salad at all.

The cassava is boiled, shredded fine, soaked and sun dried until it keeps for months. What arrives is pale, dry and almost weightless. What it becomes is another thing entirely.

How to prepare it

1. Soak. Cover the abacha in cool water for about five minutes until the strands soften and separate. Some people pour hot water over it instead, then drain immediately. Do not let it go soggy.
2. Drain well. Squeeze gently. Wet abacha ruins the dish.
3. Make the ncha. Dissolve a little akanwu in water, strain it, then whisk it into palm oil until the oil turns thick and bright yellow. This is the whole trick, and it is why abacha without potash never looks right.
4. Bring it together. Fold in the abacha with ugba, ground crayfish, pepper, salt and sliced onion.
5. Top it. Garden eggs, utazi leaves, smoked fish, kpomo, ponmo, whatever you have.

What you need alongside it

Abacha is not a solo item. For the proper dish you want ugba, akanwu, palm oil and crayfish. We carry all four.

Product details

• Also known as: abacha, African salad, ncha, mpotompoto abacha
• Ingredients: 100% dried cassava. Nothing added.
• Sizes: 6oz and 20oz bucket
• Storage: Sealed, cool and dry. Keeps for months.

Shipped from Nexxtmart to anywhere in the United States.