The paste is then pounded and molded into large balls and simmered for 30–60 seconds, after which it is thoroughly pounded to remove lumps, molded again into smaller balls, boiled for 10–15 minutes, and then pounded until smooth. Excess water is typically and quickly drained by pouring the wet paste into a sack, upon which is placed something heavy and flat (e.g., a plank and brick). It is then filtered with a porous calabash or sieve.
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Left in water for 3–4 days, the cassava ferments and becomes soft. Akpu is traditionally made by peeling and washing raw cassava until it is white. Requiring several days to make, akpu is a wet paste often eaten with egusi soup. In Nigeria, fufu or akpu is a popular food made from fresh or fermented cassava. It is mentioned in Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart, for example. Fufu's prevalence in West African subregions have been noted in literature produced by authors from that area. Today, it also features in Beninese cuisine, Cameroonian cuisine, Guinean cuisine, Nigerian cuisine, and Togolese cuisine, where it is eaten with hot pepper soup, okra, or other kinds of stew. The resulting food is eaten with liquid soups (nkwan) such as light soup (nkrakra nkwan), abenkwan (palm nut soup), nkatenkwan (peanut butter soup), and abunubunu soup. With the invention of the fufu machine preparation has become much less labour-intensive. The mixture is then formed into a rounded slab and served. In between blows from the pestle, the mixture is turned by hand and water is gradually added till it becomes slurry,soft and sticky. In Ghana, it is made out of pieces of boiled cassava and/or other tubers such as plantain or cocoyam, pounded together in a giant wooden mortar (woduro) using a wooden pestle (woma). It is believed to originate in what is now modern-day Ghana, by the Asante, the Akuapem, the Guans, the Akyem, the Bono and the Fante people of the Akan ethnic group of Ghana and now generally accepted across the country. In Twi, fufu or fufuo means "mash or mix", a soft and doughy staple food. The ball is then dipped in the soup before being eaten. The traditional method of eating fufu is to pinch some of the fufu off in one's right hand fingers and form it into an easily ingested round ball. In Ghana, fufu, also known as fufuo, is white and sticky (if plantain is not mixed with the cassava when pounding). Portuguese traders introduced cassava to Africa from Brazil in the 16th century.
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Other flours, such as semolina, maize flour, or mashed plantains may take the place of cassava flour. Some countries, particularly Nigeria, have a version of fufu made from fermented Cassava dough (called akpu by Nigerians) that is eaten with thick textured stews. The viscosity is then adjusted based on personal preference and eaten with broth-like soups. It is often made in the traditional Ghanaian, Ivorian, Liberian, and Cuban method of separately mixing and pounding equal portions of boiled cassava with green plantain or cocoyam, or by mixing cassava/plantains or cocoyam flour with water and stirring it on a stove. In addition to Ghana, it is also found in Sierra Leone, Guinea, Liberia, Cote D'Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, Angola and Gabon.
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Fufu (or fufuo, foofoo, foufou) is a dough-like food made from fresh or fermented cassava, found in West African as well as Caribbean cuisines.