Akara recipe / koki donuts

Akara: This sound of donuts made from cowpea, or bean of Cornille. They are delicious, they are crisp, golden, tasty, downright irresistible and fairly satisfying. In addition ideal for a vegan diet!

With us in Cameroon, we call them the Koki donuts and it reminds me so much my holidays in the village west of Cameroon. Whenever we prepare Koki (with green bananas), we always asked the grandmother if we could reserve the rest of the dough, to be able to make the donuts ... and she always said ouiii 😃

For those who do not know, the Koki is a very popular Cameroonian dish . It is simply the cornille beans cooked in the form of a ball with palm oil, salt and chilli. It's also very good! It also looks like the less of Nigeria!

Benight / Akara donut in Africa… 

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Koki donuts were not only known and consumed in Cameroon, but also almost everywhere in all of Africa, especially in West Africa. 

• In Nigeria : Koki donuts are called Akara or Fried Bean Cake . They consume their donuts usually in the morning as breakfast 😃
• Senegal : Even in Senegal, they are known as Akara!

• In Ghana : they call it koose or accra beans ;

• In Benin : It's called Akra Funfun , or Atta

•  Sierra Léone : Koki donuts are known as Binch Akara .

• In Togo : this is called Gaou

We also find the Koki donuts outside Africa, especially in Brési L, under the name of Acarajé . They are stuffed with a sauce made from shrimp and are generally served with a salad. Like what the akara are really popular !!! 😃

How to make the bean/ akara/ donut koki donuts

Akara ingredients: 

The ingredients really depend on everyone: here I used:

• Cornille's beans

• Onion : which give a better perfume
• Pimen t: It is an essential ingredient for the recipe
• Salt : Do not forget salt!
• Seasoning cube : optionally.
• Garlic : optional

Some people also add: 

• crayfish
• red pepper 

          Bean baking recipe: 

1. Soak : soak for about 30 minutes or until the skin swells.

2. Clean : you can clean bean with your hands, which is for me the most difficult method. Here, I used a blender to clean the beans. Just use the pulse function several times to separate the beans. The goal is not to crush, just to break the seeds.

3. M IXer the beans peeled with the ingredients : onion garlic, chili, garlic and salt

4. Whisk the dough : the goal here is to add the air in the dough , so the dough should double in volume. So whisk until the dough becomes ventilated and frothy. It will take between a minute and 5 minutes depending on the tool you use. The electric whisk takes about a minute or two. Here I just put the dough back in my mixer for 2 min, and voila. My dough was very frothy !!

5. The frying: preheat the oil and pour the mixture by spoons into the pan. Fry until the dough is golden!

The result is hot and soft donuts!

The texture of the dough is very important: 

• It is very important to help the texture of the Akara dough. The mixture must not be too smooth, otherwise the Akara will not form enough small air pockets, which will give a dense Akara.

• It is also important to pay attention to the amount of water used to mix beans . Too much water will give a thin paste and you will get flat and soft akara balls. They will even crumble during the frying!

• Do not jump the whipping stage , it is very important to incorporate air into the dough as much as possible before frying. This will get a light Akara.

How to serve accra / koki donut: 

We can accompany our donuts in different ways:

• Akara Burger : This is how Nigerians eat the Akara. With bread in the morning like a sandwich for breakfast.

• Served with porridge : in Togo for example, especially in the center (Sokodé). It is eaten with a millet -based porridge (the coconut).

• Soak in a spicy sauce : like in Cameroon! Moms sell with chili

• Eat as is.

How to succeed in these Akara donuts: my little tips!

• When preparing your donuts, a little salt is enough, you must be careful.

• If you do not have a whisk or a blender to mix the dough, you can use a wooden spoon to beat it, which will give the same result. You can even follow the traditional method using a mortar and a pestle.

• An akara well done must be light, airy, soft and relatively rounded . When the donuts seem flat, this means that it has not been introduced enough air into the dough. This is why it is very important to whisk the dough for a few minutes before making it fry.

Thank you for reading until the end. As usual, the receiver sheet is at the bottom!

Here is another recipe based on cork or niebe bean that you might want to try Black Eyes Pea Salad | Cornille bean salad

Akara Beans / Koki donuts

In Nigeria, Koki donuts are called Akara or Fried Bean Cake. In Ghana, they call it Koose or Accra Beans; In Benin it's called Akkra Funfun, and in Sierra Léone the koki donuts are known as Binch Akara.

Preparation time 20 minutes min

Cooking time 15 minutes min

Print the recipe recipe

Ingredients

  

• 300 g of Cornille or Koki bean
• 1 Onion
• 3 garlic cloves
• 1/2 pepper
• frying oil
• 1 TSP of salt
• 1/2 glass of water to crush beans and get a smooth dough
• 1 optional cube

Instructions

 

• The recipe for Koki donuts is so easy to make, the only thing that takes time and is a bit complicated is to wash beans. But luckily, we can find beans already lavas in Afoshops for those who do not have time or who simply have the laziness of washing manually ... loll
  
• For those who have enough time, I have a little tip to be able to wash the beans quickly. It will first be necessary to dip the beans for at least 4 hours before or even the day before, to soften the seeds. Then, try to crush the bean seeds in a blender with a lot of water for maximum 1 min. And finally, you just have to rub the beans with your hands and rinse several times with water so that you can completely remove the skin.
  
• Peel an onion. garlic and wash your chili
  
• Crush your beans and spices
  
• Now you have to season your dough, adding salt.
  
• The last step before the frying is to swell your dough, add air to the dough so that in the end our donuts are very soft. To do this, the dough is generally stirred using a pestle, until it doubles in volume. Here, I simply reused my mixer. I put my dough back in the machine and let it run for about 5 minutes. If you have an electric mixer, you can also use it.
  
• After 5 minutes in the mixer ...
  
• Let's go to frying…. Simply form balls using a spoon and fry in previously heated oil.
  
• Turn the donuts over so that they are golden on both sides.
  
• Serve hot with a spicy sauce. Leave a comment, I love to know what you think.