Fura or Fula as it’s popularly called in Ghana is a spice-infused millet dough ball that is served and eaten like a beverage. It’s mostly sold as street food in Ghana. But it’s so easy to make at home, I wonder why we don’t make it often. The basic ingredients for fura are just like for Hausa Koko. If you can make Hausa Koko, then you can make Fura too.
Millet is so nutritious and the spices added to the fura add it’s health benefits too. So there’s a lot of thumbs up for this beverage. I’ll entreat you to give it a try.
Fura / Fula (Millet Beverage)
Ingredients
- 200 g Millet Flour
- 50 g Millet Flour (To add in after fermentation)
- 2 tbsp Millet Flour (To roll Fura Balls in)
- 2 Pieces Hwentia
- 2 g Efom Wisa
- 16 Cloves
- 6 g Birds eye chilli (soak dried chilies in water to soften)
- 30 g Fresh Ginger
- 6 g Local black pepper (Esoro Wisa)
- 300 ml Water
- 150 ml Water (To mix in after fermentation)
Instructions
- Lightly toast the dry spices esorowisa, efom wish, cloves & hwentia till it just begins to pop. You can toast the dry spices in an Asanka but beware that the Asanka retain a lot of heat so careful it doesn’t burn.
- Peel the ginger, grind together with the toasted spices and chilies until smooth.
- Mix the grinded mixture with 300ml water and add to the millet flour.
- Using your fingers or a wooden spoon, mix well, mashing out all lumps. Cover with Cling film and set aside for some couple of hours to ferment. Best refrigerated overnight if the weather is too hot and fermentation is well advanced.
- When ready to cook, sieve the dough mixture to remove the chaff from the mixture. Use the 150ml water to help rinse out the mixture whilst sieving.
- Add in the 5og of millet flour and mix well to remove lumps.
- Place the dough mixture on the hob on medium heat and stir continuously in one direction.
- Continue stirring in one direction as the mixture thickens. It’ll finally come together in a ball. Once this has been achieved, remove from the heat and set aside to cool.
- Once it has cooled enough to handle, take sizable portions and form into balls. Lightly dust your palms with millet flour and roll the dough in your palm shaping it into a ball.
- Roll the balls in millet flour. This helps the fura from drying out. Your fura is now ready to be served.
- o serve, blend each ball with some yoghurt or kefir and some water if desired. Blend until smooth and thick , to your preferred consistency really. Fura is served like a drink or light porridge. Serve with sweetener of choice and some peanuts. In my opinion, fura was invented as a convenient porridge/Hausa Koko alternative to take on long journeys or perhaps when soldiers went to war back in those days. I hope you enjoy this beverage. Do let me have your feedback on it.
